





























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































» 

































































































































































































































































































































































PRICE $1.00. 



I 


f 



4th EDITION. 


HISTORY 


OF TFIE 


PLOTS AND CRIMES 

OF TEIE 

GREAT CONSPIRACY 

TO OVERTHROW LIBERTY IN AMERICA, 

By DEACON DYE, 

EXPLAINING HOW 

tayloi ^ 

AND 

Liisrooiiiisr 

Were successfully assassinated while acting as Presidents of the United States. 


Also, a full and complete account of the efforts made to take the lives of 

Presidents JACKSON and BUCHANAN. 
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR., 

ISTo. 29 Scath Sixth. Street, 












PREP AGE. 


s 


It is the object of the author to give, in a small compass, a 
complete history of the political crimes originating with African 
Slavery, and perpetrated by its friends, during the last century, in 
America. 

We think it necessary, for the good of future generations, to 
show how these men resorted to the most atrocious means to 
defeat the nation’s will, and control the Government; and all 
these failing, how they rose in open rebellion, determined to 
destroy the power they could no longer control. We deem it 
useless to speak here of the assassination of three of our most 
illustrious Presidents, all of whom were swept aside like cobwebs 
when they stood in the way of the conspirator’s unholy designs. 

Thus all the chief magistrates elected, since the foundation of 
the Government, in opposition to the slave interests, in some form 
or other, became victims of assassination. 

We have given the history of these foul deeds in detail; 
and the evidence furnished will enable the reader to judge under- 
standingly, and correctly. We have thought proper to throw 
out a few hints about State Sovereignty under the head of Origin 
and History of the American Union, and Historical Sketches 
of Civil Wars in other Countries. Also a detailed account of 






iv 


PREFACE. 


all important events and battles from the outbreak of the rebel¬ 
lion to its overthrow, showing that the sword, and the sword alone, 
conquered peace. Slavery, the cause of our strife, must be wiped 
out; as the object of the rebellion was to extend and perpetuate 
it; and retain the black man in hopeless bondage. The rebellion 
failed; and all its hopes and expectations must perish with its fall. 

The slaves, by the logic of events , should now become as free 
as their masters. But as the latter sought to destroy the Federal 
Government when they ceased to control it, so they now seek by 
various devices to bring about a condition of things calculated to 
produce a war of races. They want the civilized world to justify 
them in their mischievous designs in defying the General Gov¬ 
ernment behind their old fortification, the rights of the States , 
where they are now enacting unequal laws, determined to retain 
all the substance, while they acknowledge that the form of slavery 
has become extinct. 

They design to use the black as an instrument to curtail the 
liberty of the white. But they will learn that there is no safety 
for their own freedom, except through justice and equal laws to 
the former. 


JOHN SMITH DYE. 


/ 


INDEX. 


Adams, John. 

Arming Slaves. 

American Union—Its Origin and History.. 

Army of the Potomac, its commander and battles, previous to Gen. Grant... 

Assassins, Trial of. 

Assassinations of Distinguished Persons in other Countries. 

Bill of Rights. 

Bill Repealing Missouri Compromise. *.... 

Brown, John. 

“ “ Changes His Base. 

Buchanan, President—Attempt to Assassinate Him. 

Charleston—Its Fall. 

Chicago Convention and Platform, McClellan, &c. 

Committee to Draft Declaration of Independence. 

Convention in Philadelphia. 

Calhoun, John C. 

His Vision. 

His Last Speech. 

Detesting the Union. 

Emancipation Proclamation. 

Fillmore, Millard—His Accession to Office, and His Hush-up-Policy. 

Fugitive Slave Law. 

First Gun at Fort Sumter. 

Grant—His Personal and Military History, Complete. 

In Mexico. 

Frederickstown, Belmont, Fort Donaldson, Pittsburgh Landing, Corinth, 
Memphis, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Wilderness, Cold Harbor, 

Gaines’ Mills, Cedar Creek, Petersburg and Richmond. 

Harrison, President—Why, and IIow he was Assassinated. 


P.1£« 

45 

142 

146 

116 

310 

351 

5 

59 

67 

101 

90 

244 • 
129 
4 
7 
15 
23 
55 
121 
136 

55 

56 
106 
251. 
252 


255 

36 


History of Great Civil Wars. 

Jefferson, Thomas. 4 

Jackson, President—Attempt to Assassinate Him. 27 

Kansas—Slavery Outrages, Action of the House of Representatives, Orders of 
the Governor, Federal Dragoons brought into the Field, Indig¬ 
nation Meeting at Leeompton, its Legislation. 61 
































VI 


INDEX. 


Page 


Lincoln, Life of. 296 

“ Re-election. 135 

Madison, James. 10 

Nullifiers—Their Real Designs. 21 

Peace by Diplomacy. 185 

Polk, President—Takes His Seat, Situation of Parties. 47 

Pierce, President, desires to acquire Cuba. 86 

Plot to Assassinate President Lincoln—The Conspirators. 113 

Sherman and His Great Campaigns, Complete. 204 


Slavery, Enemies of—Strengthened by Provision in Constitution, Denounced 
in Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence, Bill 
of Sale, Acts for Abolition of, Opinions of our First Presidents, 
Above Compromise, Outrages in Kansas, Slaveholders Become 
Rampant and Commence War on Civilization, Why Slavehold¬ 


ers Detested the Union. 121 

Secret Societies... 6-2 

State Rights Doctrine, President Jackson on. 18 

Tyler, President, succeeds Harrison, His Unpopularity, His Cabinet entirely 

from Slave States, elected President of Peace Convention. 41 

Taylor, President, Suppresses Cuban Invasion, Resolve to take His Life, His 

Assassination. 54 

To the American People—The Rights of the North and the Rights of the 
South, the Rights of the White, and Rights of the Black Man 

—What should be done. 357 

Virginia Legislature. 189 

Washington, George. 12 

Webster, Daniel—Reply to Calhoun. 25 

Wilmot Proviso. 49 

Walker, Gen. Win. 87 

Wilmington—Its Capture. 248 




0 























MR. LINCOLN’S FAVORITE POEM; 


This was written by William Knox, a young Scotchman, a contemporary of 
Walter Scott, who died quite young, leaving this production as a monument to his 
youthful and gifted mind. His remarks on the Declaration of Independence, and 
fondness for this poem, display the goodness of Mr. Lincoln’s heart. 

Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?— 

Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 

He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 

Be scattered around, and together be laid; 

And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 

Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. 

The infant a mother attended and loved ; 

The mother, that infant’s affection who proved 
The husband, that mother and infant who blest,— 

Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest. 

[The maid .on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, 

Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by; 

And the memory of those who loved her and praised, 

Are alike from the minds of the living erased."] 

The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne, 

The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn, 

The eye of the sage, an/1 the heart of the brave, 

Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, 

The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep, 

The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, 

Have faded away like the grass that we tread. 

[The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven, 

The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven, 

The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, 

Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.] 

So the multitude goes—like the flower or the weed, 

That withers away to let others succeed ; 

So the multitudes come—even those we behold, 

To repeat every tale that has often been told : 


For we are the same our fathers have been; 

We see the same sights our fathers have seen; 

We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, 

And run the same course our fathers have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think ; 
From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink 
To the life we are clinging, they also would cling— 

But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 

They loved—but the story we can not unfold; 

They scorned—but the heart of the haughty is cold ; 

They grieved—but no wail from their slumber will come ] 
They joyed—but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 

They died—ay, they died—we things that are now, 

That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, 

And make in their dwelling a transient abode. 

Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road, 

• 

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain 
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; 

And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, 

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 

’Tis the wink of an eye, —’tis the draught of a breath; 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, 

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud 
Oh 1 why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 


THE FATHERS 


OP 

THE REV0LTTTI03ST. 

THEIR DEVOTION TO FREEDOM. 


On the fifteenth day of Ma} 7 , 1776, the birds had returned 
with the season, and were making forest and grove resound 
with their songs. The beautiful spring flowers had matured 
in all their loveliness, and climbing on their tiny leaves the 
Honey Bee sweetly sung out that winter was gone. 

Although nature was smiling, the Colonies were sad. The 
tyranny of England had kindled a feeling of revenge in their 
minds, which soon cast the political elements back into chaos. 
It was on the above mentioned da} 7 , that John Adams, as Chair¬ 
man of a Committee, presented a resolution in Congress, which 
was adopted, recommending to the respected assemblage and 
convention of the United Colonies, the establishment of a gov¬ 
ernment suited to the exigency of the times. This resolu¬ 
tion gained favor with the public, and on the seventeenth day 
of June following, Richard Henry Lee moved, and John Ad¬ 
ams seconded the resolution, declaring that “ these United Col¬ 
onies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States ; 
and that all political connection between them and Great 
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” After daily de¬ 
liberations on these resolutions for over a month, on the sec¬ 
ond of July they were unanimously adopted by Congress ; 
and on the same day it appointed Thomas Jefferson, John 

1 



4 


THE FATHERS OF 


Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. 
Livingston a Committee to draft “ a Declaration of Inde- 
pendence.” 

Although Mr. Adams was rocked in the cradle of liberty, 
Mr. Jefferson was unanimously known as her champion ; and 
on him was the honor conferred of drafting the Declaration. 
He did it; and, after some amendments, it was solemnly adopted 
in the city of Philadelphia, on the glorious and ever memora¬ 
ble Fourth of July, 1776. After being read, the great bell 
on the hall began, as if by magic, to ring, reverberating the 
great and immortal truths just promulgated. Its loud notes 
thundered dismay to the minds of tyrants, but kindled hope 
in the breasts of the people. 

The enemy having a large naval force in our harbors, sava¬ 
ges on our frontiers, treason in our camps, spies in our cities, 
gold in their coffers, and gibbets in their eye—the fawning 
sycophant, the man who wanted peace in his day, the go. 
between threatening and promising ; and last, the cowardly 
sympathizer with the hated foe—all these to other men would 
have appeared unsurmountable obstacles. But in the face 
of all—God bless them—they boldly stepped forward, deter¬ 
mined to be free, leaving themselves no alternative but “ lib¬ 
erty or death.” 

They had the sagacity to determine the right, and the cour¬ 
age to maintain it. While others were wavering, they were 
firm ; they could neither be courted, intimidated nor bribed ; 
the wealth of the Indies would have been to them as dust. 
No royal standard could have induced them to forsake the 
standard of liberty. In the darkest hour a halo of glory 
surrounded them—a secret self-sustaining influence, which 
dispelled all gloom. They gathered from the never changing 
laws of human nature, that mankind, without regard to race, 
condition, country, clime or color, desired and deserved every 
where to be free. 

Thus, “ life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ” are enun¬ 
ciated in the Declaration of Independence as the inherent 
rights of man ; “ and to secure these rights governments are 


THE REVOLUTION. 


5 


instituted among men, deriving their just power from the 
consent of the governed.” 

Here Mr. Jefferson not only sets forth and enumerated the 
rights, but he positively asserts that to secure them is the 
chief object of governments. He discards the idea of gov¬ 
erning by “ divine right,” and shows that governments should 
be created, not against, but by the will and consent of the 
governed. The power to rule is always lodged with the peo¬ 
ple, and put in motion by the will of the majority. 

This was the foundation laid down in the Bill of Rights ; 
and wherever it has been steadily adhered to, liberty has been 
protected, life has been secure, property well guarded, and 
unbounded prosperity has everywhere been the reward, to 
such a degree that it has no parallel in the history of man¬ 
kind. God, in his infinite wisdom, decreed that the man who 
wrote the Declaration, and the man who advocated it, were 
the last living witnesses of its adoption by the American 
Congress, and the latest survivors of those who subscribed it 
on the Fourth of July. Charles Carroll, being absent on a 
secret mission on the fourth, subscribed it afterwards. 

On the anniversary of the fiftieth year from the day the 
Declaration of Independence was adopted, they both departed 
this life. When the sun of the glorious Jubilee shone in un¬ 
clouded and meridian splendor, during the very hour on which, 
fifty years before, the Declaration was read by him and 
adopted by Congress, Thomas Jefferson died, exulting that 
that was the day and the hour. Just as the sun was saluting 
with his parting rays the same glorious day, and during the 
very hour on which, fifty years before, the Declaration of In¬ 
dependence was read from the State House to the citizens of 
Philadelphia, John Adams expired, exclaiming, “ It is a great 
and glorious day;” and while giving utterance to the last 
word he departed. 

These great men always understood the design and end of 
government to be freedom and security. And however our eyes 
may be beguiled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; 
however prejudice may warp our judgments, or interest darken 


6 


THE FATHERS OF 


our understandings, the simple voice of nature and reason will 
say it is right. 

They had no model in Grecian or Roman history to build 
from ; but took as their guide the desire of all men to be 
free. Liberty was the chief corner-stone ; they claimed it as 
a gift from the Almighty, coupled with humanity, equality 
and justice.” With such a natural, stable, and solid founda¬ 
tion, it shadowed forth the noblest effort of human wisdom. 

It was under the foregoing principles that the war of the 
Revolution was commenced, and so triumphantly brought to 
its close. It was the departure from those principles, when 
the organic law of the general government was formed, that 
induced the great and good Lafayette to remark, “That he 
would never have drawn his sword in the cause of America 
if he had thought that thereby he was founding a land of 
slavery.” 

Among the enemies of slavery could be counted Washing¬ 
ton, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, Livingston, Patrick 
Henry, Madison, Hancock, Morris, St. Clair, the Randolphs— 
John and Thomas. Add to the above the rest of the signers 
of the Declaration, backed up by the great document itself. 

We defy and challenge the world to show one single patriot 
of the Revolution who was in favor of Slavery, or advocated 
its extension. Some desired its gradual extinction, but not 
one can be named who spoke in favor of its remaining as a 
permanent Institution. Well may the poet exclaim : 

“ The tender ties of parent, husband, friend, 

All bonds of nature, all in slavery end. 

All other sorrows virtue may endure, 

And find submission more than half a cure, 

But slavery, virtue dreads it as her grave. 

Patience is meanness in a slave. 

Now is the dawning of a better day. 

Come, snap the chain the moment when you may. 

Nature imprints upon whate’er we see, 

That has a heart and life in it, be free.” 


THE REVOLUTION. 


7 


WHAT SLAVERY DID FOR THE CONSTITUTION. 

The War of the Revolution having been brought to a suc¬ 
cessful termination, the Colonies began to feel the need of “ a 
more perfect union.” Surrounded as they were by savage 
tribes, self-defence and the general welfare demanded some¬ 
thing more for their protection. Thus, in 1787, a Convention as¬ 
sembled in Philadelphia and laid the foundations of our Na¬ 
tional Government. Notwithstanding the Revolution had 
been fought and won on the doctrine of equal rights, yet, 
when the colonies formed a national compact, they set aside 
the principles on which their liberties had been gained. 

The 3d clause of Section 2d, article 1st, relating to repre¬ 
sentatives and taxes. Capital in general is subject to taxa¬ 
tion ; but capital invested in slaves is, in addition, allowed rep¬ 
resentation. “ The number of representatives shall not exceed 
one for every thirty thousand.” This excludes Indians not 
taxed, but negro slaves are counted as three to five. The 
practical operation of this clause in the Constitution is, that 
ten white men owning 50,000 slaves would be allowed one 
Representative in the lower branch of Congress ; while ten 
who had invested a similar amount of capital, or ten times the 
amount in lands or merchandise would have nothing to say ex¬ 
cept one vote each. They would just lack 29,990 more white 
persons to be entitled to a representative. Their capital in¬ 
vested in real estate and merchandise might be taxed, but to 
be represented also, they would have to invest it in negro 
slaves. 

In a speech delivered in the Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass., 
by Robert Toombs of Georgia, Jan. 24th, 1856, he said of the 
above clause : “ This provision strengthens slavery by giving 

the existing slave holding states many more representatives 
in Congress than they would have if slaves were considered 
only as property. Twenty Representatives in Congress hold 
their seats to-day by virtue of this clause.” 

Section IX, article 1st, as it reads in the Constitution : “ The 
migration or importation of such persons as any of the 


8 


THE FATHERS OF 


States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not 
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand 
eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed 
on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each 
person.”* 

This section recognized the slave trade for a period of twenty 
years, or until 1808. Mr. Martin, of Maryland, one of the dele¬ 
gates, proposed to amend that clause, so as to prohibit the slave 
trade. For, said he, it is inconsistent with the principles of the 
Revolution. But Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, immediately 
jumped to his feet and remarked, that the true question was, 
whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to 
the Union. Pinkney, of the same State, remarked that South 
Carolina would never accept the Constitution if it prohibited 
the slave trade. After which Mr. Rutledge remarked, if the 
convention think that North Carolina, South Carolina and 
Georgia will ever agree to be parties, unless their right to im¬ 
port slaves be untouched, the expectation is vain. 

The article was so altered as to allow the importation of 
slaves until 1800, but this was too short a time. Pinkney, of 
South Carolina, moved to strike out 1800 and insert 1808, and 
the motion was carried. 

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, 
the slave trade is denounced as piratical warfare. These 
denunciations were struck out of the Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had 
never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and 
who, on the contrary, wished to continue it.— Writings of 
Thos. Jefferson. 

In the South Carolina Convention, Judge Pendleton ob¬ 
served that only three states, Georgia, South Carolina and 
North Carolina, allowed the importation of negroes. Their 
reason for so doing was that during the last war they lost vast 
numbers of them, which loss they wished to supply. 

It was notorious that the postponement of immediate abo¬ 
lition (of the slave trade) was indispensible to secure the 
adoption of the Constitution. It was a necessary sacrifice to 


THE REVOLUTION. 


9 


the prejudices and interests of a portion of the Southern 
States.—3 d Story Com. Con. 1828, 1829. 

Mr. Morris, of Pennsylvania, thought it would avoid am¬ 
biguity by making the clause read thus : “ The importation of 
slaves into North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia shall 
not be prohibited.” He wished it to he known that that part of 
the Constitution was a compact with those States. 

The 2d section of article IV. of the Constitution reads 
thus : “ No person held to service or labor in one State under 
the laws thereof escaping into another shall, in consequence 
of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such ser¬ 
vice or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party 
to whom such service or labor may be due.” This was inserted 
in the Constitution by the same influence. Butler and Pink¬ 
ney, of South Carolina, moved to require fugitive slaves and 
servants to be delivered up like criminals. 

Why the word slave was left out of the Constitution. The 
Northern delegates, owing to their peculiar scruples on the 
subject of slavery, did not choose to have the word slave men¬ 
tioned.—4 Ell., Deb. 175. 

Story says that it was agreed that slaves should be repre¬ 
sented under the milder appellation of “other persons,” not as 
free persons, hut only in proportion of three-fifths. The clause 
was in substance borrowed from that passed by the Continen¬ 
tal Congress on the 18th of April, 1783.—2c i Story Com. 641. 

The 15th clause of the 8th section of the 1st article of the 
Constitution, provides for calling forth the militia to execute 
the laws of the Union , suppress insurrections , and repel inva¬ 
sions. Gov. Livingston of N. J., from the General Committee, 
reported this clause as it stands in the Constitution. 

Madison, Randolph, and other patriots kept the words ser¬ 
vant and slave from being inserted in that instrument, and 
substituted in their stead service and person . 

The South has always viewed the above phrases as mean 
ing slaves and slavery ; while the North has soothed its abo- 
lition conscience by boasting that the word slave or slavery is 
not mentioned in the Constitution. All admit that that in- 


10 


THE FATHERS OF 


strurnent did not create slavery, for it existed, as an inher¬ 
itance from Great Britain, long before the Revolution. For 
over one hundred and fifty years slaves had been held by the 
Colonists, and if the Constitution had set a limit to the traffic 
on land, as it did on the sea, we should not have had the pres¬ 
ent rebellion. 

Thus the Union, through the Constitution, was bound up 
with the sinews and cemented with the blood of the African 
slave. 

The anti-democratic feature of the Federal Constitution 
was always viewed by the patriots of the Revolution with a 
jealous eye. James Madison, in a letter to Edmund Randolph, 
dated New York, April 8th, 1787, remarks : “ It is also already 
seen by many, and must by degrees be seen by all, that unless 
the Union be organized efficiently on republican principles , 
innovations of a much more objectionable form may be ob¬ 
truded, or, in the most favorable event, the partition of the 
empire into rival and hostile confederacies will ensue” 

OPINIONS AND POLICY OF THE PRESIDENTS AND CONGRESS 

FROM 1789 TO 1820. 

In the preceeding pages we have given a concise account 
of the organization of our Government, with hints on the 
character, opinions and designs of the managers and actors in 
the war of Independence. We now purpose to admit what 
they did, explain what they should have done , and did not , and 
give a truthful account of the consequences that followed. 

In governments they denied and repudiated the dogma of 
ruling by “ divine right abolished titles of nobility and en- 
tailment of estates, evils that originated with despots, and 
have been continued only for the benefit of the craft. They 
rejected those assumed rights as antagonistic to Republican 
Governments. But, while they did this, they left it in the 
power of the States to retain the most dreadful foe of human¬ 
ity that had reached their time. Thus the sin of omission be¬ 
came with them downright transgression. The recognition 
by the Government of the unnatural traffic in human flesh and 


THE REVOLUTION. 


11 


blood, permitting States to retain laws sustaining the buying 
and selling, and dooming to perpetual bondage its laboring 
poor, has proved a national disgrace, and is now the damning 
scourge that threatens our disolution. 

To show the reader the terms by which a slave is held and 
transferred, we copy, verbatim , a Bill of Sale, a South Carolina 
relic of the rebellion : 

SLAVE BILL OP SALE. 

“ Bill of Sale. 

“ Know all men by these presents, that I, W. S. Whaley, for 
and in consideration of the sum of six hundred dollars to me 
in hand paid, at and before the sealing and delivery of these 
presents by Wm. M. Murry the acceptor thereof, I do hereby 
acknowledge to have bargained and sold, and by these presents 
do bargain and sell, and deliver to the said Wm. M. Murray, a 
negro woman, named Harriet, warranted sound, to have and to 
hold the said wench Harriet, with her future issue and in¬ 
crease, unto the said Wm. M. Murray, his executors, adminis¬ 
trators and assign^ to his and their only purpose, use and be¬ 
hoof, forever ; and I, the said W. S. Whaley, my executors 
and administrators, the said bargained premises unto the said 
Wm. M. Murray, his executors and administrators and assigns, 
from and against all persons shall and will warrant and forev¬ 
er defend by these presents. 

“ In witness thereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, 
dated at Charleston on the fifth day of March, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty, and in the 
sixty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of 
America. W. S. WHALEY. [Seal.] 

“Signed, sealed and delivered, 
in the presence of 

“ THOMAS S. GfADDEN.” 

This traffic in human flesh is an unpardonable sin against 
human nature. It has been our great national sin against the 
Holy Ghost, which can be forgiven neither in this life nor the 
life that is to come. 


12 


THE FATHERS OF 


Now as governments have no future existence, their sins 
must be punished here. And as war is one of the most effec¬ 
tual means the Almighty takes to chastise a guilty nation, he 
has sent it on us in its most malignant form. Not a war against 
a foreign power, but a war among ourselves—a national sui¬ 
cide. Truly our scourge can only be surpassed by our crimes. 
No question of sufficient magnitude could have ever been in¬ 
troduced to unite the people of one section against the other 
in battle array, except this very question of slavery. 

We shall now give a few thoughts on the policy of the ear¬ 
ly Fathers; and the reader can rely upon its being a correct 
history in every particular. When quotations and dates are 
given, they are from the best authorities and can never be-con¬ 
troverted. Of the reasoning and suggestions the world will 
determine for itself. 

General Washington’s election, as the first President of 
the United States, took place in 1789. His re-election in 
1793. He gathered around him as his chief advisers, such 
men as Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Randolph for Cabinet 
officers, men who were and are well known to have been dia¬ 
metrically opposed to slavery in every form. 

John Adams, who was elected in 1797, called to his Cabinet 
Timothy Pickering, Oliver Wolcott, James McHenry, Joseph 
Habersham and Charles Lee. All had previously been mem¬ 
bers of Washington’s Cabinet. 

Thomas Jefferson, elected Nov. 1801, and re-elected in 1805, 
chose for his chief Cabinet officer James Madison, and held 
Joseph Habersham and Benjamin Stoddert. Joseph Haber¬ 
sham had been Post-Master-General under both President 
Washington and John Adams. He occupied the same posi¬ 
tion in Jefferson’s Cabinet. Benjamin Stoddert had served 
as Secretary of the Navy under Adams, and was so continued 
by Jefferson. 

James Madison, elected first in 1809, and re-elected in 1813, 
brought in James Monroe as his chief Cabinet adviser; and 
when Monroe was elected in 1817, he made John Quincey 
Adams Secretary of State. During these several Adminis- 


THE REVOLUTION. 


13 


trations, Congress passed no less than four slave trade acts. 

The first is the act of 1807. The second is the act of 1818. 
The third is the act of 1819. 

Its first section of the last authorizes the President to employ 
armed vessels of the United States to enforce the acts of Con¬ 
gress prohibiting the slave trade. 

The fourth is the act of 1820, making the slave trade piracy. 
The great blow given to slavery by the Declaration of In¬ 
dependence, caused Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, in 1780, 
to pass acts for its abolition. New York followed in 1799, by 
gradual emancipation, to be completed in 1827. New Jersey 
passed an act in 1784 to gradually emancipate, to be completed 
in 1820. Rhode Island, in 1784. Connecticut in 1797. New 
Hampshire abolished slavery in her constitution. Vermont 
did the same, and was admitted into the Union March 4th, 
1791. The North West Territory was made free under the 
Ordinance of 1787. Maine came into the Union with a free 
Constitution March 3d, 1820. 

Thus for a period of 28 years the General Government was 
managed by men Opposed to slavery. In fact nearly all civil¬ 
ized nations, at that time, were arrayed against it. An act in 
Great Britain, in 1807, made the slave trade unlawful. Den¬ 
mark refused to admit African slaves in her Colonies after 
1804. The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, pronounced for the 
abolition of the trade. France abolished it in 1817. So did 
Spain ; the acts to take effect after 1820. Portugal abolished 
it in 1818. 


HEAR THEIR OPINIONS OF SLAVERY : 

In a letter to Robert Morris, dated Mount Vernon, April 
12, 1786, Washington says : “ I can only say that there is not 
a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a 
plan adopted for the abolition of it. But there is only one 
proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished ; 
and that is by legislative authority, and this, as far as my suf¬ 
frage will go, shall never be wanting.” 

John Adams, one of the. Committee who assisted in drawing 


14 


THE FATHERS OF 


up the Declaration of Independence ; the man whom Thomas 
Jefferson called the column of Congress, the pillar of support 
of the Declaration of Independence, and its ablest advocate 
and defender, agreed with Washington. 

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to a friend, dated July 31, 
1814, remarks : “ What an incomprehensible machine is man, 

who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death 
itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment 
be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him 
through his trial, and inflict on his fellow-man a bondage, one 
hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that 
which he rose in rebellion to oppose.” 

“We must wait with patience the workings of an overruling 
Providence, and hope that a way is preparing for the deliver¬ 
ance of these our brethren , when the measure of their tears 
shall be full. When their groans shall have involved heaven 
itself in darkness, doubtless a God of Justice will awaken to 
their distress. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of 
fate, than that this people shall be free” 

James Madison, in speaking against the slave trade, said : 
“ It is to be hoped that by expressing a national disapproba¬ 
tion of the trade we may destroy it, and save our country 
from reproaches, and our posterity from the imbecility ever 
attendant on a country filled with slaves” Furthermore, he 
said, “ It is wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that 
there can be property in man.” 

James Monroe, in a speech in the Virginia Convention, 
said : “We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very 
vitals of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States 
in which it has existed.” 

John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, ap¬ 
pointed 26th September, 1789, during Washington’s Admin¬ 
istration, in a letter to the Hon. Elias Boudinot, dated Novem¬ 
ber 17th, 1819, says : “Little can be added to what has been 
said and written on the subject of slavery. I concur in the 
opinion that it ought not to be introduced nor permitted in 
any of the new States, and that it ought to be gradually di¬ 
minished and finally abolished in all of them.” 


THE REVOLUTION. 


15 


Our entire volume might be filled up with extracts from 
these great men's writings and speeches. From 1789 until 
1817, a period of twenty-eight years, so distasteful were the 
slave sentiments of South Carolina statesmen, that through 
eight successive presidential terms not one of its leading men 
ever held a seat in the Cabinet of any of the Presidents, save 
and except Paul Hamilton, Secretary of the Navy under Mad¬ 
ison, in 1809 ; and we have the best of evidence that he was 
a man of liberal views, or he would not have been chosen for 
one of the Cabinet officers. 

SATAN ENTERED PARADISE. 

It was on the 8th day of October, 1817, that the Devil en¬ 
tered Paradise. John C. Calhoun, then young, with princi¬ 
ples little understood, was chosen by James Monroe as his 
Secretary of War. Up to this time no question had arisen in 
the councils of the General Government that threatened any 
serious disturbance. In 1819 and 1820 Missouri, formed out 
of the Louisiana purchase, organized with a slave Constitution, 
and knocked at the door of the Union for admission. This 
was the first time since the adoption of the Federal Consti¬ 
tution that slavery presented itself in a political aspect. 
There was a peculiar clause in the Missouri Constitution, not 
only establishing slavery, but also forbidding any legislative 
interference with it. This was something uncommon in State 
constitutions, and the doctrine of placing any State institu¬ 
tions above and beyond the reach of legislative authority was 
received by many as dangerous. Many other objections were 
made, but finally the controversy settled down on the single 
question of slavery : Has a State a right to have slavery if she 
chooses ? 

In this controversy the excitement ran very high; sharp 
words were used by both disputants ; and a division of the 
Union was threatened on the line of slavery. Finally the ex¬ 
citing controversy was brought to a close by a Compromise, 
which generally leaves both disputants dissatisfied. 

As a sample of how little use a compromise is to either 


16 


THE FATHERS OF 


party, I will relate the following of our worthy President: 
When the Pacific Railroad question was up before Congress, 
friends of the New York and Erie Railroad called upon Pres¬ 
ident Lincoln and desired him to use his influence to have 
Congress adopt the broad guage, so that the Erie Railroad could 
run their cars through to California. Mr. Lincoln remarked 
that friends of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad had called 
on him the week before, requesting his influence in favor of a 
narrow guage. Says he, “ If I was to grant your request they 
would be dissatisfied, so, gentlemen, I think the best thing I 
can do is to compromise, making it a little wider than the 
track of the Central, and not quite so wide as the Erie.” 

Missouri, with slavery in her Constitution, was admitted ; 
but the opponents of slavery secured, as an offset, the aboli¬ 
tion of slavery in all the remaining province of Louisiana 
north and west of the State of Missouri, and north of the 
parallel of 36 degrees 30 minutes. 

Our treaty, wherein Spain ceded us Florida, and the Gen¬ 
eral Government ceded Texas to Spain, (this territorial trade 
having taken place in 1819, and taking the two treaties to¬ 
gether,) very nearly extinguished slave territory in the 
United States. Except the diagram marked out for Arkansas, 
and a few Indian reserves, it cut off all below 36 deg. 30 min., 
the Missouri Compromise cutting off all that vast expanse of 
Louisiana north of 36 deg. 30 min. This Treaty gave, first to 
Spain, second to Mexico, all the slave territory south of the 
aforesaid line. Coming into the possession of Mexico, it be¬ 
came free. Now add the Ordinance of 1787, ceding the 
Northwest Territory to the General Government, in all of 
which slavery and involuntary servitude, except for crime, 
was forever excluded. By this all the. country east of the 
Mississippi, above the Ohio, and out to the Great Lakes, was 
made free. And the Missouri Compromise extinguished it 
north and west of the State of Missouri, and north of the 
parallel of 36 deg. 30 min., except, as before stated, the dia¬ 
gram of Arkansas and a few Indian reserves. 

Thus the reader can see that in 1820 Arkansas and Florida 


THE REVOLUTION. 


17 


was the only slave territory belonging to the General Govern¬ 
ment. The increase of slave States was stopped. And all the 
vast expanse from the Mississippi river, Lake Michigan, 
Rocky Mountains, and Oregon, by action of the General Gov¬ 
ernment, Avas all made free territory, and Avith the consent 
and support of Southern men then in Congress, and approved 
by their constituents at home, who Avere, almost to a man, 
then opposed to the further extension of slavery. 

The excitement created by the discussion of the Missouri 
Compromise had been allayed, and all was calm again. Mr. 
Monroe’s term of office Avas about expiring. Andrew Jack- 
son for President, and John C. Calhoun for Vice President, 
both slave holders. In opposition to them was Adams for 
President, and Clay for Vice President. Yet nothing was 
said in the campaign to arouse the feelings of either section 
concerning slavery. Jackson, Adams, Clay and Crawford, were 
all candidates for the Presidency in this campaign of 1825. 
Jackson received 99 electoral votes; Adams 84; CraAvford 
41 ; and Clay 37. Neither of the persons voted for having 
received a majority' of the votes, it devolved upon the House 
of Representatives to choose from the three highest on the 
list of those voted for by the electors for President ; which 
three were Andrew Jackson, John Q. Adams, and Wm. Craw¬ 
ford. The votes of thirteen States were given for Adams ; the 
votes of seven States for Jackson ; and the votes of four States 
for Cra\\ 7 ford. John Quincey Adams having received a ma¬ 
jority of the votes of all the States of the Union was duly 
elected President of the United States, commencing the 4th 
of March, 1825. John C. Calhoun, Avho had run on the ticket 
Avith Jackson, received 182 electoral votes, Avhich elected him 
Yice President. 

Mr. Adams Avas a candidate for re-election in 1829, Avith 
Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, for Yice President, both 
from the free States. Jackson and Calhoun, both slave hold¬ 
ers, were the opposition ; j^et nothing to arouse the feelings 
concerning slavery was said by either party. The only ques¬ 
tion of importance before the voters, was the right of the peo- 


18 


THE FATHERS OF 


pie to govern themselves. This issue was brought forward ot. 
account of the previous election going to the House, and it 
was openly charged that intrigue and corruption were the 
leading features of it. Jackson received 178 electoral votes, 
Adams only 83. Calhoun did not receive as many as Jackson. 
The falling off was in Georgia, where Mr. Crawford charged 
home on him his connection with the Aaron Burr Plot. 

In the second year of his Vice Presidency, Calhoun and his 
South Carolina friends, seeing that the action of the Federal 
Government had been almost unanimous in favor of freedom ; 
the vast territories, even those that had been acquired from 
France and Spain, being nearly all made free, they perceived 
that slavery was hemmed in, and without an outlet it would 
soon become a burden rather than a profit. 

At this time Calhoun’s friends started a paper in Washing¬ 
ton City, called the United States Telegraph. In this paper 
he commenced to advocate the State Rights’ doctrine. He 
was very violent for the scheme which he and his slave-holding 
friends had set on foot, for nothing less than a dissolution of 
the Union. This was to be accomplished through the doctrine 
of State Rights. Getting that poison well infused into the 
Democratic party, backed up by so formidable an element, the 
State of South Carolina could quietly retire from the Union. 
To give his ideas more force, Calhoun called a meeting on the 
evening of the 13th of April. This was Jefferson’s birth day. 
His object was to use that great man’s name as god-father 
for his new political heresy, Jefferson having died on the 4th 
of July, 1826, and this meeting was in 1830. It was Calhoun’s 
design to put words into Jefferson’s mouth that he never ut¬ 
tered. But the news got spread about, and a large gathering 
was present; among the rest, President Jackson, who had 
got an inkling of what was to be. Jackson was called upon to 
act as President of the meeting. After the 24 regular toasts 
were delivered, eulogizing the great Jefferson, some one in 
the assembly called for a volunteer toast from the President. 
This toast not only proved Jackson’s far-seeing statesman¬ 
ship, but also his devoted patriotism. He rose from his seat, 


THE REVOLUTION. 


19 


/ill eyes upon him. In an instant the excitement and bustle of 
the crowd was hushed into the stillness of death. Without 
pencil or paper, he did not read anything before prepared, but 
spoke directly from his heart: “ Our Federal Union . It must 
be 'pi'eservedy What a storm of applause followed 1 Jackson 
did not say it ought , or it should , but “ It must be preserved.” 

These were words spoken in the right place and at the right 
time, and the American citizen does not live, without his mind 
is rotten with treason, but will say Amen to the senti¬ 
ment, and tell it to his children aiid their children’s children, 
to be repeated in all coming time. The general joy and good 
feeling that had been kindled by the President’s happy hit, 
was interrupted by some friend of Calhoun’s, who got on a 
seat and loudly called for a toast from him. After quiet was 
restored, Calhoun read the following: 

“ The Union next to our liberties the most dear. May we 
all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the 
rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefits and 
burdens of the Union.” 

The snake now came stealthily from the grass. The Union 
was put second to our liberties, when it was the only thing 
that gave us liberty. The rights of the States was then lug¬ 
ged in and placed paramount to the Union, when any man 
of judgment knows that if the Union was dissolved all the 
rights remaining to the States would be the right of force, to 
fight and use each other up—always preparing for war, en¬ 
gaged in war, or suing for peace. This would be the legacy 
left to the States if the Union was gone. 

As we before remarked, Jefferson was to be made god¬ 
father to this State Rights heresy. This doctrine of state 
rights was, and is yet , that a State has a right to annul an act of 
Congress, and resist by force, if need be. its execution. The 
Virginia Resolutions of ’98-99 were so warped and miscon¬ 
strued by Calhoun, as to favor the above heresy. Mr. Madi¬ 
son, their author, still lived on his farm ; and inletters to Mr. 
Maguire and Everett, and in his daily intercourse with his fel¬ 
low citizens, denounced the use that was being made of his 


20 


THE FATHERS OF 


resolutions. Mr. Madison’s interpretation of their meaning, 
was that they sustained and advised only constitutional means 
of redress, while those of Calhoun counseled violence and 
revolution. Instead, says Madison, of Virginia counseling nul¬ 
lification doctrine, the occasion was viewed as a proper one 
for exemplifying its devotion to public order, and acqui¬ 
escence in laws which it deemed unconstitutional, while those 
laws were not repealed—meaning the alien and sedition laws. 
Calhoun had also dragged the Kentucky Resolutions of’99 into 
the support of his heresy, claiming Thos. Jefferson as their 
author. Thus the celebration of his birth-day—at though J ef- 
ferson was not the author. The resolutions were passed at 
the same time as those of Virginia, and contemplating the 
same grievance ; yet all the remedies they proposed were 
pointed out in the Federal Constitution. Roth sets of resolu¬ 
tions contemplated only Constitutional remedies. But “ nulli¬ 
fication,” says Madison, “ inserts deadly poison in the institu¬ 
tion we had labored to construct.” Mr. Madison also under¬ 
stood Mr. Jefferson’s views, which were likewise being mis¬ 
represented. 

December, 18, 1831, Madison, in answer to a letter from Mr. 
Townsend, of South Carolina, remarks : “You ask whether Mr. 
Jefferson was really the author of the Kentucky resolutions, 
wherein the word ‘nullify’ is used, (though not in the sense of 
South Carolina nullification.) The inference is that he was 
not. That Mr. Jefferson ever asserted a right of a single State 
to resist the execution of an act of Congress, is counteracted 
by nothing known to be said or done by him.” 

We have now proved that the Virginia Resolutions contem¬ 
plated only Constitutional means of redress ; also, that those 
of Kentucky were harmless, being similar to those of Virgin¬ 
ia. That James Madison while living repudiated the State 
Rights heresy, and vindicated the views of Thomas Jefferson, 
who was then dead, by proving that he held the doctrine that 
it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the Federal 
articles, that being inherent in the very nature of a compact. 
Having proved by their own testimony that Madison and Jef- 


THE REVOLUTION. 


21 


ferson were both opposed to the heresy of State Bights , and 
that they both claimed for the General Government the right 
to exercise its authority and power to overcome resistance. 
Therefore this heresy did not originate with either the author 
of the Declaration of Independence, or the author of the Consti¬ 
tution of the United States • but with the champion of the 
slave power, in the person of John C. Calhoun of South Car- 
olinia. 

We have now arrived at the point to show the real designs 
of the nullifiers. Men seldom act without motives, either in 
an individual capacity or collectively. When the motives are 
evil, and not likely to be seconded by the public, an ardent de¬ 
sire for success compels the manager or managers to substi¬ 
tute other reasons more in harmony with the feelings of the 
people whom they aim to deceive. 

Although slavery yet lingered, (would to God it had died) 
no one was bold enough to pray for its recovery, and nearly 
all would have rejoiced over its death. Southern men had by 
their votes in Congress shut it out of all the Territories of the 
United States. Many of the organized states had, and were 
abolishing it. The General Government was counted as its 
enemy. The moral and political sentiment of the entire na¬ 
tion was set against it. Against such a heavy sea of pub¬ 
lic and Legislative opinion, few men in any age would have 
stepped forward as its champion. 

South Carolina, the only State in the Union , except Mississippi, 
that has more slaves within its borders than free white cit¬ 
izens, furnished the man. He would have come from Missis¬ 
sippi, but for the reason that it had only a surplus of 14,160 
slaves, while South Carolina could boast of 110,421 surplus 
above her white population. Thus the demon, with all the 
venom of eternal hate, came right from the very throne of 
the slave power. John C. Calhoun was his name. 

After surveying the situation, he began to mature the plan 
of attack. The will of the people was known to be against 
the wishes of him and his friends. Nothing was left for him 
but to throw himself back on the rights of the States. This 


22 


THE FATHERS OF 


was admirable, but the object was first to unite the people 
of South Carolina—second, that being done, all the slave 
States, like ripe fruit, would fall into the lap of Nullification. 

Presuming that a State had an inherent right to secede , the 
next thing was to convince the people of the South that it 
was their interest to do so. And for this purpose he used the 
Tariff. The South, being an agricultural region, was easily 
convinced that a high tariff on foreign imports was injurious 
to them. He next undertook to explain to the South that these 
high duties were placed on specific articles, and was done, as 
special favor, to protect local interests. Thus he said to the 
people of the South, You are being taxed to support Northern 
manufacturers. And it was on this popular issue he planted 
his nullification flag, and gathered around it his friends and 
dupes. The throne of the slave power, located in South Car¬ 
olina, was his backer, and the slaveholders throughout the 
South, who loved slavery better than they did the Union, were 
his friends, and his dupes were such of the Democrats from 
the free States as had become alarmed for the safety of the 
party, and made a close alliance, by agreeing to drop the good 
old democratic doctrine of the rights of man, founded in human 
nature , and advocated by the apostle of democracy, Thomas 
Jefferson. These men threw all such rights to the wind, and 
greedily seized the great instrument of the slave power, State 
Rights. This new bastard democracy meant the right to de¬ 
stroy, peaceably or by force, (when ready,) the Federal Union. 

It was thought necessary, in order to get this matter fairly 
before the nation, to call a Convention. So the 24th day of 
November, 1832, was set as the time, and Columbia, South 
Carolina, as the place of meeting. 

This was the first open renouncement that had ever been 
made in any State against the General Government. And 
here it is proper to give Calhoun’s Vision , or dream, as he some¬ 
times called it, and the origin of the spot on the hack of his hand: 

It was on the Sabbath, late in the month of October, 1832, 
Calhoun, after a chat with his friends, retired to his room, re¬ 
solved to pen the article, or forge the wedge, that was to 


THE REVOLUTION. 


23 


divide tlie Union of the States. With treason in his heart, 
and treachery in his soul, all alone he sat down at his table 
and commenced to write the Ordinance of Nullification . or ar¬ 
ticle of dissolution . 


THE VISION. 

“While sitting at the table,” says Calhoun, “having taken the 
precaution to lock my door, to prevent the possibility of being 
annoyed, I thought I heard it softly open. I was then en¬ 
gaged in writing the ordinance to be read at the meeting to 
be held at Columbia, South Carolina, the next month. My 
back was towards the door, and being engaged in deep 
thought, I did not turn round again. A noise struck my ear 
like the agitation of flowing robes. I looked around, and be¬ 
hold a tall figure stood erect. A death-like fluttering seized 
my heart; my nerves gave way ; my sinews became weak 
and soft like flesh ; my entire frame became unstrung, and 
trembled, as by instinct, for its own preservation. 

“ When these awful sensations had passed over me, I rallied 
as though frightened from the effects of a dream. On open¬ 
ing my eyes, behold an officer, wearing the uniform of the 
Continental army standing by my table, and, as it were, his 
eyes fixed upon my manuscript. He gradually raised his 
eyes from the paper, and looked earnestly into mine. I re¬ 
turned the gaze as well as I could. We remained motionless 
for thirty seconds, when all at once I felt a chilly sensation of 
awe pass through me. I spoke, without effort, these words, 
and I never shall forget them : It is the features of the im¬ 
mortal Washington; thou hast come from the realms of the dead. 
For what hast thou come , 0, hero of the Revolution ? t 

“ He spoke, in a firm, clear voice : ‘ John Caldwell Calhoun, 
desist. South Carolina produced one of the greatest martyrs 
to libert} r , in the person of Hayne, and let it not be written 
on her history that she also gave birth to the blackest traitor 
recorded in the annals of time. Look only to an everlasting 
union of the States. In union there will be peace ; in union 
there will be prosperity ; in union thero will be happiness ; 


24 


THE FATHERS OF 


in union there will be liberty. Dissolution is political anni¬ 
hilation ; it would be death.’ 

“ Finishing these remarks, he caught hold of my right hand, 
and pressed his thumb hard on its back, and remarking, 
‘Across the articles of dissolution, stretched the skeleton of 
Hayne, and on the back of your hand will a black spot be 
visible through the remainder of your life.’” 

Calhoun has told this to several of his friends, and always 
remarking he could not tell whether it was a vision or a 
dream. In after years, when he would become worked up to 
great mental excitement in his debates on the right of seces¬ 
sion or nullification, he invariably fell to rubbing the black 
spot on his hand, as though it annoyed him. 

If the black spot had appeared on Calhoun’s head, instead 
of his hand, it could easily be accounted for on the ground 
that he was the first victim to that awful Southern scourge, 
“ nigger on the brain.” But we are rather inclined to think that 
his was only a severe case of a previous malady known as 
“ plantation grip.” 

Calhoun sent down his ordinance to South Carolina ; and on 
the appointed day, in November, the nullifiers assembled at 
Columbia, and raised the banner of Secession. The chief griev¬ 
ance set forth was the Tariff, which they alleged was passed 
to protect manufacturers of the North at the expense of the 
South. The most remarkable thing they stated in the or¬ 
dinance was, that they intended to maintain their resolve to 
withdraw from the Union at any hazard, even to the force of 
arms. This ordinance was signed by over one hundred of the 
wealthiest slaveholders in the State of South Carolina, and 
returned to Calhoun. The Tariff was, as we before stated, 
only adopted as a means to raise the popular outcry. The 
Tariff could easily have been changed by changing Congress ; 
therefore there was no cause for secession on that ground. 

But we will now prove by incontestable evidence where 
the real trouble was.. About this time Calhoun delivered a 
speech in the Senate. It was after his Vice Presidency had 
expired, some time in 1838. He remarked : “ The contest 


THE REVOLUTION. 


25 


will in fact be a contest between power and liberty, and 
such he considered the present contest between South Caro¬ 
lina and the General Government—a contest in which the 
weaker section, with peculiar labor , 'productions and situation , 
has at stake all that is dear to freemen.” 

One man in the Senate and one in the House had sagacity 
enough to see the black man in the fence . 

Daniel Webster, in answer to Calhoun, said: “Sir, the 
world will scarcely believe that this whole controversy, and 
all the desperate means which its support requires, has no 
other foundation than a difference of opinion between a ma¬ 
jority of the people of South Carolina on the one side, and a 
vast majority of the people of the United States on the 
other. The world will not credit the fact. We who hear and 
see it can ourselves hardly yet believe it.” 

John Q. Adams was the member in the House. He said : 
“ In opposion to the compromise of Mr. Clay, no victim is 
necessary, and yet you propose to bind us hand and foot, 
to pour out our blood upon the altar, to appease the unnatural 
discontent of the South—a discontent having deeper root than 
the Tariff, and will continue when that is forgotten.” 

If Mr. Adams had put on the mantle of Jeremiah, or 
Isaiah, he could not have surpassed in prophetic accuracy, or 
wise discrimination, the above last paragraph. 

Mr. Benton says, in his Thirty Years, that the remarks 
of Calhoun had the appearance of laying an anchor to the 
windward for a new agitation on a new subject after the Tariff 
was dead. 

President Jackson, in his message to Congress, in 1832-33, 
puts the hollow cheat of State Rights to rest: “ The right of 
a people of a single State to absolve themselves at will, and 
without the consent of the other States, from their most sol¬ 
emn obligations, and hazard the liberties and happiness of 
millions comprising this nation, cannot be acknowledged. 
Such authority is believed to be wholly repugnant, both to 
the principles upon which the General Government is consti¬ 
tuted, and the objects which it is expressly formed to obtain.” 


26 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OP 


This was a bomb into the camp of the nullifiers, and gave 
them to understand what they must expect if they still per¬ 
sisted in their treasonable designs. Jackson held to the Union 
without any ifs or bids. A favorite remark of his, in conver¬ 
sation with friends, was , that no sectionalinterest or sectional 
discontent should ever be allowed to weaken the bonds or break 
up the Federal Union. 

When Calhoun saw these unconditional Union sentiments 
in Jackson’s message, he knew it was a salvo from the peace¬ 
maker, shot only across the bow, as a warning to heave to. 
He knew well that the next discharge would be a broadside 
that would shiver his piratical craft to atoms. So Captain 
Calhoun, with his brig South Carolina, and ordinance, rounded 
to, and continued under the guns of the frigate Constitution, 
Commodore Andrew Jackson, commander, until Mr. Clay, 
under the instruction of one of the Commodore’s aids, Mr. 
Clayton, prepared articles of capitulation, which the piratical 
captain of the South Carolina readily signed, acknowledging 
the power of the Constitution and nationality of her flag. 

As we before mentioned that Calhoun had control of a 
newspaper published in Washington, here is an extract from 
a speech delivered by the Hon. Isaac Hill, of New Hamp¬ 
shire, as to its character : “ For the last five years it has been 
laboring to produce a Northern and Southern party, to fan 
the flame of national prejudice, to open wider the breach, 
drive harder in the wedge which shall divide the North from 
the South.” 

Thus the reader can see that the slave power used every 
effort to create sectional hate and divide the Union years be¬ 
fore either Thompson, Tappan or Garrison came into the field. 

Thus the storm originated in the most densely slave pop¬ 
ulated region of the South. When it reached the Ship of 
State, the political elements became agitated, darkness cov- 
ered the southern horizon, while black darkness hovered 
round the masts of the great ship as it rocked to and fro in 
the vortex of contending elements. The storm and the sea 
appeared in desperate conflict which should secure the 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


27 


mighty prize, freighted as it was with the accumulated treas¬ 
ure and precious lives of twenty millions of people, whose 
hopes of happiness were all concentrated there. Old masters 
with different hopes, looked on from afar—some hoping that 
she might sink and be lost in the storm—others shedding 
tears at her distress, and praying that she might survive, 
when all at once the elements became calm, the mist dis¬ 
appeared, and revealed to the wondering millions the great 
ship in all her majestic pride. 

Commodore Jackson had subdued the storm, brought order 
out of confusion, and kindled hopes in the hearts of his coun¬ 
trymen. Would to God we had them now. 

Thus ended the first effort of the slave power to destroy 
the Union. It failed, but did not abandon the enterprise; 
the darker the prospect, the more desperate grew its friends. 

AN ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT JACKSON—NEW THREATS 
OF DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 

The slave power having been defeated in its first attempt 
to destroy the Federal Union by the sagacity and courage of 
Andrew Jackson, -withdrew to its den of infamy to devise new 
and desperate schemes for the future. It feared as well as 
hated the man who defeated nullification. Calhoun himself 
became more embittered by reflection, and was frequently 
heard to say that Jackson was a tyrant and despot , and better 
men than he had been hung. In fact, it was no uncommon 
thing at that time to hear threats against the President’s life. 
The corrupting influence of the moneyed power of the United 
States Bank joined hands with the slave power, although from 
very different motives. Both would have been delighted to 
have heard of Jackson’s assassination. But the plot to over¬ 
throw republican institutions was far more attrocious. In the 
presence of a crime of such magnitude all other crimes grow 
pale. Thus Calhoun had a soul ever ready to betray human 
nature, with a heart as black as night. 

About this time, 30th of January, 1835, while the President 
with a few members of his Cabinet were in attendance at the 


28 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


funeral of Mr. Waren R. Davis, a Member of Congress from 
South Carolina, who had just died at Washington, and the fu¬ 
neral ceremonies were being conducted in the Hall of Repre¬ 
sentatives, where all had congregated, when the ceremonies 
were over, and the procession had just reached the foot of the 
steps at the eastern portico, President Jackson, accompanied 
by Mr. Woodbury, Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Dicker- 
son, Secretary of the Navy, on coming out of the door, at that 
moment a man stepped from the crowd into the open space 
in front of the President, and at a distance of about eight 
paces, drew a pistol from beneath his cloak—aiming at the 
heart of the President, attempted to fire. The cap exploded 
without igniting the powder in the barrel. He immediately 
drew from beneath his cloak another, which he had held 
ready cocked in his left hand, and pointing as before, this cap 
also exploded without firing the powder in the barrel. At 
this moment the President rushed at him with uplifted cane ; 
the traitor shrunk back, and Lieutenant Gedney, of the navy, 
knocked him down. He was secured by the bystanders and 
taken before Justice Crancli, who committed him in default of 
bail. His name proved to be Richard Lawrence, an English¬ 
man by birth, and a house-painter by trade. The pistols were 
examined and found loaded. Caps were put on them, and 
both fired without fail, the balls going through inch boards 
thirty feet distant. 

The friends of the President felt it to be a grateful interpo¬ 
sition of the Almighty. All looked upon his escape as miracu¬ 
lous, having its origin in the all-wise providence of God. 
The conduct of the assassin excited and surprised every one. 
The boldness of the undertaking in broad daylight, and in 
a public gathering, was all weighed and turned over. The 
great precaution of the assassin in providing two pistols, fear¬ 
ing one might fail, was argued as evidence of a deep laid 
plot. Various were the surmises, and finally some one sug¬ 
gested that he must be insane. At this suggestion the Mar¬ 
shal of the District of Columbia called a council of physicians 
to examine and report. Drs. Caussin and Sewell were the 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


29 


men selected. They made the examination, and concluded not 
to give any official opinion, but to make their report on ques¬ 
tions as they put them, and the answers as he gave them. We 
give a few of the questions and answers to show the leading 
features of his mind. 

Q. Did any one advise you to shoot General Jackson ? 

A. I don’t like to say. 

Q. Have you ever been in Congress, and heard the mem¬ 
bers making speeches ? 

A. Yes. 

Q. How did you like the speeches of Calhoun, Clay and 
Webster ? 

A. 1 liked them well. 

Q. Who would yon like to see President ? 

A. Either Calhoun, Clay or Webster. 

Q. Are you friendly to General Jackson? 

A. No. 

Q. Why not ? 

A. Because he is a tyrant. 

We have given enough of this report to show that this 
man, whether deranged or not, had strong prejudices against 
Jackson, and ja high opinion of his most bitter enemies ; using 
the word tyrant, a phrase Calhoun was always applying to 
Jackson. His admiration for Calhoun was supposed by many 
to be caused by an affinity of interest, or an accidental union 
of feelings of revenge against a common foe. 

Whether this man was induced to attempt to murder the 
President by listening to his defamer making speeches in 
the Senate, the greatest of which was Calhoun, or whether he 
was secretly hired to assassinate him, God alone can deter¬ 
mine. 

There is no doubt but the death of Jackson would have 
been received by Calhoun as the tocsin of victory. Add to 
this his deep and long seated revenge, and you have two very 
strong motives in a bad man’s heart to commit crime. Either 
Lawrence’s intellect was weak, and the storm created by the 
slave power drove him to attempt the crime, or he was se- 


30 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


cretly hired by its friends to do it. Either one would fasten 
the guilt direct or remote on the President's defamers, the 
principal of which was John C. Calhoun. 

We can not dismiss the history of those thrilling events, 
without giving an extract from Jackson’s Farewell Address. 
As putting down the attempted disolution of the Union was 
one of the greatest achievements of his Administration, he 
still saw that a new effort would be made. He says : “ What 
have you to gain by division and dissolution ? Delude not your¬ 
selves with the belief that a breach once made may be after¬ 
wards repaired. If the Union is once severed, the line of sep¬ 
aration will grow wider, and the controversies that are now 
debated and settled in the halls of legislation, will be tried on 
fields of battle, and determined by the sword. Neither should 
you deceive yourselves with the hope that the line of separa¬ 
tion would be the permanent one, and that nothing but har¬ 
mony and concord would be found in the new associations 
formed on the disolution of the Union.” 

These solemn warnings Jackson left to the nation, just be¬ 
fore quitting office and returning to his home to die. 

The storm created by the slave power during Jackson’s Ad¬ 
ministration, had become lulled to a calm. Arkansas and 
Michigan had both been admitted into the Union during his 
term of office. No slave territory now remained to be formed 
into slave states except Florida. 

Martin Van Buren was inaugurated President on the 4tli 
of March, 1837, and during his term of office nothing very ex¬ 
citing took place concerning slavery. Its friends were evi¬ 
dently recruiting from the Waterloo defeat given them by 
Jackson, but had not yet determined on the mode of another 
attack. 

In 1839, the Hon. Wm. Slade of Vermont, a member of the 
Lower House of Congress, presented petitions from his con¬ 
stituents, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District 
of Columbia. This brought down the ire of several Southern 
members. Among them, Wise of Virginia, endeavored to 
prevent Slade from speaking by enforcing parlimentary rules, 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


31 


alleging that he was out of order. Finally, after repeated ef¬ 
forts, a vote was carried to adjourn, sixty-three members vot- 
ing against it. Here, Mr. Campbell of South Carolina, jumped 
on a chair, and requested all members from slave holding 
states to go at once into the District Committee Room, where 
a meeting was being organized. 

Rhett of South Carolina, wrote to the Charleston Mercury, 
declaring that the Constitution had failed to protect the South 
in her rights, and advised a dissolution of the Union, and pro¬ 
posed that two persons from each slave state should meet and 
report on the best means peaceably to dissolve the Union. 
Although six years had hardly passed away since the nullifi¬ 
cation defeat, another attempt was now made on a larger scale. 
Mr. Patter of Virginia, became the pacifier in this contro¬ 
versy, and the ire of South Carolina simmered down. 

The threatened dissolution of the Union on the line of 
slavery, made so soon after the defeat of the effort of South 
Carolina, convinced the thinking men of all parties at the 
North that nullification was not dead, but sleepeth. 

About this time, 1838-9, Mr. Clay made a speech in the 
Senate against agitating the slavery question. His very 
speech was agitation, for he could not help but know that any 
kind of agitation was death to slavery. To speak in its favor 
is an insult to a savage, and much more to a civilized man, 
who weighs the actions of men and governments in the scale 
of justice. To speak against it, drags the hideous outlaw and 
criminal from his dark abode into the light, who, to be hated, 
needs only to be seen. It was in that speech Clay made his 
famous attack on Daniel O’Connell, the Irish liberator. The 
latter had made some remarks against slavery in the British 
House of Commons. Mr. Clay, referring to that, remarked : 
“ that he regarded his speech as the ravings of a plunderer of 
his own country, and the vilifier of a foreign and kindred 
people.” 

The political horizon about this time looked rather hazy, 
although there was no appearance of an immediate storm. 
The politicians were now beginning to urge the claims of party 


32 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


favorites whom they wish to become presidential candidates. 
Two financial crises had occurred—one at the commence¬ 
ment, the other at the close of Mr. Van Buren’s administra¬ 
tion. The banks in the different States had become so crip¬ 
pled by the crisis, that they joined the friends of the United 
States Bank, and both charged Mr. Van Buren and the Demo¬ 
cratic party, with being the authors of all the financial distress. 

The Democrats re-nominated Martin Van Buren, with Rich¬ 
ard M. Johnston as Vice President, for a second term ; while 
the Whigs re-nominated their old candidates who ran in 1836, 
William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, and John Tyler, of Vir¬ 
ginia, for Vice President. Thus the presidential aspirants 
for the election of 1840 were brought into the field. 

The banks, as before stated, made common cause with the 
Whig party, and gave their undivided support to secure the 
election of Harrison and Tyler. Financial ruin was every¬ 
where evident; the political element was charged with na¬ 
tional discontent; the people themselves had resolved upon 
a change. Add to this state of things, the millions of money 
thrown into the canvass by the discontented banks—it made this 
the most exciting election ever witnessed. When the campaign 
fairly opened, the pressure became such that everything gave 
way . The mechanics forsook their workshops, the farmers their 
plows, to join the electioneering cavalcades that were every¬ 
where to be met moving on to conventions. The thorough¬ 
fares were crowded' with processions made up from all pro¬ 
fessions and trades. Mounted on long coupled wagons could 
be seen on his seat the shoemaker, with his awl and last, at 
work at his shoe ; the tailor down on his bench, plying 
his needle and thread, with his goose by his side ; the sadler 
at work at his tree ; the harness-maker at his trace ; the 
tinsmith at his kettle ; and the blacksmith, with his leather 
apron, tongs and sledge, at work on his anvil ; the farmers, 
not to be outdone, were there with their threshing-floors and 
help, threshing grain with their old Indian flails ; the pio¬ 
neer and his log hut, with latch-strings outside, and a dog 
and gun in position within ; men in companies of fifty, strip- 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


33 


ped to the waist, with Indian costumes, having long black 
hair hanging down to the waist, with quivers, tomahawks, 
scalping-knives, and bow, all painted and mounted on horse¬ 
back, going through the various evolutions of Indian warriors 
advancing to battle ; add to this their hideous yell, accompanied 
with the ring of the anvil and sound of the flail, the sweet 
music of the band, and still sweeter voice of lovely women, 
joining in the loud chorus— 

“ We’ll just take a cup of hard cider, 

And drink to old Tippecanoe.” 

Never was there such a popular uprising of the people. At 
Dayton, Ohio, a convention was held one month before the 
presidential election. The old hero of Tippecanoe was there. 
The crowd, measured by the acre, by competent engineers, 
showed one hundred thousand people. A flag-pole and flag 
on top of a house was the sign for free lunch within. Eight 
hundred poles of that kind were counted. Men of all ages 
and conditions in life mingled together as brethren in a com¬ 
mon cause. Old grandmothers, with tottering steps, sup¬ 
ported by buckeye canes ; women with children in their arms ; 
young misses and boys jostling about as the great crowd 
swayed to and fro. 

The election over, Harrison got two hundred and thirty- 
four electoral votes. Van Buren only sixty. 

Thus ended one of the greatest political excitements, termi¬ 
nating peacefully, that ever occurred in any country. The 
people had triumphed in electing a man of their choice. 

The day of political intrigue was now inaugurated. In 
1838, during Van Buren’s administration, Mr. Preston, of 
South Carolina, had proposed the annexation of Texas. In 
his speech on :hat occasion he remarked: The treaty, Mr. 
President, of 1819 was a great oversight on the part of the 
Southern States. We went into it blindly. I must say the 
great importance of Florida, to which the public mind was 
strongly awakened at that time, by peculiar circumstances. 


34 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OP 


led us precipitately into a measure by which we threw awaj 
a gem that would have bought ten Floridas." 

Another remark in Mr. Preston's speech is worthy of no¬ 
tice. Speaking of the boundary of 1819, he said, “It places 
a foreign nation on the rear of our Mississippi settlements, 
and brings it within a stone's throw of the great outlet which 
discharges the commerce of the Union." 

Although Mr. Yan Buren and the slave power had made 
friends, and South Carolina gave him the first electoral vote 
she had given to any President for twelve years, although 
there was strong evidence of an understanding, neither Mr. 
Preston's speech, nor the strong arm of Executive will, could 
convince the Senate that while Texas was at war with Mex¬ 
ico the proper time for annexation had come. By annexing 
Texas, we annexed war. And a motion to lay the proposition 
on the table prevailed by a vote of 24 to 14. 

The annexation of Texas now became the great scheme of 
the slave power. Originating as it did in South Carolina, it 
came into the national councils with the smell of treason. Be¬ 
tween 1820 and 1830 nearly three hundred families from 
the various slave States, mostly from Louisiana, had received 
permission from Spain, while Spanish authority was still 
maintained in Mexico, to settle in that fertile region, under 
the express condition that they should submit to the laws of 
the country. In the meantime Mexico separated from Spain, 
and immediately passed laws abolishing slavery in her domin¬ 
ions, and also prohibiting it in all future time. This the new 
settlers in Texas did not relish. Backed up by the slave 
power of the Southern States, a great number of lawless 
adventurers from the border slave States went over into 
Texas, hatched a conspiracy, and organized rebellion against 
Mexico, and, with a population of less than twenty thousand, 
declared themselves free. Thus war between Texas and 
Mexico was commenced. 

There was no more slave territory belonging to the United 
States, except Florida. Mexico had abolished slavery, and 
passed laws prohibiting it forever. The growth of the slave 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


35 


power demanded more room. The General Government had 
no territory except that in which slavery was prohibited by 
positive enactment. By surveying the situation, the slave¬ 
holders and nullifiers of South Carolina discovered Texas. 
Tlnus Mr. Preston’s effort, under Van Buren’s Administration, 
to annex ; also, his remarks about a foreign nation being placed 
in the rear of our Mississippi settlement, had a double mean¬ 
ing : first, they were foreign because it belonged to Mexico; 
second, it was foreign to the Mississippi settlement because 
they were slave, and Mexico had declared Texas free. 

Thus the greedy slave power, with an appetite not to be ap¬ 
peased, stood watching its chosen victim with the one absorb¬ 
ing thought —hoiv can I secure it. It was at this interesting 
moment that General Harrison came to Washington to assume 
his duties as Chief Magistrate of the nation. Although born 
in a slave state, still, like Jefferson, he was opposed to slavery. 
As soon as he got cleverly warm in his seat, he was visited 
by J. C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Messrs. Gilmore and Up¬ 
shur of Virginia, and two others, whose names we have forgot¬ 
ten. These five men had the interest of slavery committed to 
their care, and the object of their visit to the President was 
to ascertain his views about annexing Texas. This interview 
took place in the President’s reception room. After passing 
the usual compliments of the day, Calhoun became the spokes¬ 
man. He said : 

“ General, the subject of annexation, I believe, like a mo¬ 
tion to adjourn, is always in order. The object of our visit 
is to ascertain your views concerning the annexation of Texas.” 
To which General Harrison made the following reply: that 
he had not given the subject that attention it deserved ; there¬ 
fore he could not speak positively as to what policy he would 
pursue. But he could say this much—if Texas had her in¬ 
dependence acknowledgd by Mexico, then, under certain con¬ 
ditions, he would favor annexation. 

This was about all that passed on that subject at that in¬ 
terview, and the Southern gentlemen retired. They did not 
even ask the General what these conditions were. He had 


36 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OP 


said sufficient to satisfy them that he was not the man to carry 
out their plot, with such men as Webster and Ewing in his 
Cabinet. Their success was next to impossible. Then for 
the next best thing. They had staked all their hopes on get¬ 
ting back Texas. The South was perishing for the want of 
more slave territory, and the defeat of Van Buren by Harri¬ 
son was now about to prevent their success. They immediately 
went to see John Tyler at his own home in Virginia, and 
after explaining every thing to him, he agreed to the great 
necessity of securing Texas at once, and at all hazards ; but 
I am powerless, says Tyler. I will leave the management of the 
matter with you. If I should ever become President I would 
exert the entire influence of that office to accomplish the object. 

This was joyful news. ’ They had found the right man, and 
only one thing was wanting to get him in the right place. 
President Harrison was near seventy years old, and a little 
would suffice to put him aside. He had already lived to a 
good old age, and received many honors. “ He can not, in the 
course of nature, live but a short time longer. He is sur¬ 
rounded by a bad set of men who will do all they can to de¬ 
feat our darling annexation scheme. We can not get rid of 
them without we first get rid of the old man himself. They 
determined rather than be defeated to murder the President.” 

On the 17th of March the Chief Magistrate issued a Proc¬ 
lamation convening Congress in extraordinary session for the 
31st of May ensuing. He was enjoying his usual good health. 
“ Thus,” says Mr. Benton, “ President Harrison did not live to 
meet the Congress which he had thus convoked. Short as the 
time was that he had fixed for its meeting, his own time on 
earth was still shorter. In the last days of March he was 
taken ill. On the 4th day of April he was dead. There ivas 
no failure of health or strength to indicate such an event , or to 
excite apprehensions that he icould not go through his term with 
the vigor he had commenced it. His attack was sudden and evi¬ 
dently fatal from the commencement .”— Benton’s Thirty Years 1 
Vol. II, 210. 

Mr. Benton evidently intended the above remarks to con- 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


37 


vey to posterity that General Harrison did not die of natural 
disease—no failure of health or strength existed—but some¬ 
thing sudden and fatal. He did not die of Apoplexy ; that 
is a disease. But arsenic would produce a sudden effect, and 
it would also be fatal from the commencement. This is the 
chief weapon of the medical assassin. Oxalic acid, prucic 
acid, or salts of strychnine, would be almost instant death, and 
would give but little advantage for escape to the murderer. 
Therefore his was not a case of acute poisoning, when death 
takes place almost instantaneously, but of chronic , where the 
patient dies slowly. He lived about six days after he re¬ 
ceived the drug. 

By referring to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 
Yol. XXY, 1841, it will be seen, that his case was at first con¬ 
sidered complicated Pneumonia, but terminated in gastro in¬ 
testinal irritation or inflammation, resulting in death in a little 
over four days from the time of the attack. The circum¬ 
stances which surrounded the illness of President Harrison 
were such as to preclude all apprehensions of his physicians 
of any but natural causes for his sickness; yet let us con¬ 
sider how similar are the symptoms of certain poisons, and 
the causes of natural disease, or disease from poisons that 
the best physicians may commit an error in their diagnosis, 
and not only fail to suspect the existence of poisons, but 
even prescribe and administer the established remedies, 
which only augment the difficulty, and, render the action of 
these poisons certainty fatal, as will be seen by referring to 
Taylor on Poisons, page 107 : “ To the practitioner the diag¬ 
nosis of a case of poisoning is of great importance, as by 
mistaking the symptoms produced by a poison for those aris¬ 
ing from natural disease, he may omit to employ the reme¬ 
dial measures which have been found efficacious in counter¬ 
acting its effects, and thus lead to the certain death of a patient.” 

Again, the same author, on the same page, says that if poi¬ 
sons are taken in large doses, and the person is in health, 
“ the symptoms appear suddenly.” 

Again, on the same page : 


38 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


“ It is very true that these powerful agents, given at inter¬ 
vals in small doses, do not cause those striking symptoms 
upon which a practitioner commonly relies as evidence of 
poisoning. They may then produce disorder, but of so slight 
a nature as scarcely to excite suspicion. In fact, under these 
circumstances, the symptoms often so closely resemble those 
of disease, that an experienced practitioner may be easily 
mistaken respecting their origin, especially when no circum¬ 
stances exist to create the least suspicion of criminality on 
the part of relatives and others around the patient. Arsenic 
given in small doses, at long intervals, has thus occasioned 
symptoms resembling those which depend on chronic disease 
of the stomach. After repeated attacks and recoveries, sus¬ 
picion may be completely disarmed. Among several cases of 
this kind which have been referred to me for investigation, 
was one in which it was alleged that a farmer, in one of the 
midland counties, had been poisoned two years before by his 
housekeeper, who was a respectable person, and most atten¬ 
tive to him as a nurse during his illness. He had been at¬ 
tacked at intervals with vomiting and other signs of disorder 
of the stomach about three months before his death, but re¬ 
covered under medical treatment. * About eight days before 
his death the symptoms recurred with greater violence than 
ever, and he sank under them. They were referred to ulcer¬ 
ation of the stomach, so closely did they resemble those of 
disease. As there was no suspicion of poison, the body was 
not examined ; and nothing would have been known respect¬ 
ing the real cause of death, but for a statement made two 
years afterwards, by the housekeeper, that she had on two 
occasions administered to her master small doses of arsenic, 
and the last, probably from its being larger than the first, 
had occasioned death. In the case of Reg. v. Wooler (Dur¬ 
ham Winter Assizes, 1855), it was proved that the deceased 
had been laboring under symptoms of poisoning by arsenic, 
for a period of about six weeks before her death. The symp¬ 
toms showed that she must have received the poison at dif¬ 
ferent periods in small doses. At first they were referred to 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


39 


disease. It was, however, their continuance and their occa¬ 
sional violent recurrence in spite of treatment, that induced a 
suspicion of poisoning, which was confirmed by a chemical 
examination of the urine, and subsequently of the body.” 

From the foregoing quotations it will be seen how natural 
it was for any physician to have been mistaken in the case ; 
and supposing this to be true, it is very evident that the rem¬ 
edies used in the case, being what Dr. Taylor calls irritants, 
such as mercury and antimony, and capable of augmenting 
the difficulty and adding to a condition already established, 
the cause of which not being suspected could only be followed 
by the fatal result. On page 109, the same author says: 
“ A diseased state of the body may render' a person compar¬ 
atively unsusceptible of the actions of some poisons, while in 
other instances it may increase their action and render them 
fatal in small doses.” Again, on the same page, he says : “In 
certain diseased states of the system, there is an increased 
susceptibility to the action of poison, or what is termed intol¬ 
erance of certain drugs. Ordinary medicinal doses may in 
such cases exert a poisonous action. Thus, in persons who 
have a tendency to apoplexy, a small dose of opium may act 
more quickly and prove fatal. In one laboring under inflam¬ 
mation of the stomach or bowels, there would be an increased 
susceptibility of the action of arsenic, or other irritants.” 

Supposing the fatal agent used to have been arsenic, the 
use of mercury and antimony in his case certainly would come 
under the last considerations, “ irritants,” and cause an in¬ 
crease of the difficulty, and transfer the disease to the stomach 
and bowels. The whole class of symptoms of active diseases 
of the stomach and bowels, are closely allied to disease# pro¬ 
duced by poisons of this class ; and in almost every instance 
may be mistaken, as quoted above, for natural diseases. Such 
was the fact in the case of General Harrison ; and under 
circumstances that would entirely exempt his physicians 
from blame or censure for any failure in diagnosis, or the 
administration of irritants in the treatment; such remedies 
being according to standard authority in his supposed disease ; 


40 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


while they are never recommended when poisons of the same 
kind are already in the system. As this case changed so much 
from the beginning, it is almost certain that the irritants used 
in the case fully developed the effect of the arsenic which 
he had taken, and resulted as above stated. 

Dr. Taylor, on page 123, says : “ The diseases, the symp¬ 
toms of which resemble those produced by irritant poisons, 
are cholera, gastritis, enteritis, gastro-enteritis, peritonitis, 
perforation of the stomach or intestines, strangulated hernia, 
colic, and hsematemesis.” He further adds, page 125 : “ Gas¬ 
tritis, Enteritis , Gastro-enteritis , Peritonitis .—These diseases 
do not commonly occur without some obvious cause ; in¬ 
deed, the two first, in the acute form, must be regarded as 
the direct results of irritant poisoning. Thus arsenic and other 
irritants, when they prove fatal, commonly give rise to inflam¬ 
mation of the stomach and bowels. In all cases in which these 
diseases present themselves, the object of a practitioner is, there¬ 
fore, to determine the cause of the inflammation, whether it be 
due to natural disease, or the action of an irritant poison.” 

With these facts, and the quoted authority, can any one 
doubt that General Harrison was poisoned, and also that his 
physicians overlooked the true nature of the malady. The 
attending physicians, Drs. May and Miller, supposed he 
died of billious pleurisy. His death occurred at half past 
12 o’clock at night, Saturday, April 3d, 1841. About noon it 
was supposed he was getting better, but at 3 o’clock the symp¬ 
toms became more violent, and at sundown his entire Cabinet 
Officers were informed that the symptoms were such that it 
was evident he must die. 

All this time John Tyler was absent, at home on his farm in 
Virginia. Fletcher Webster, Chief Clerk in the State De¬ 
partment, was immediately dispatched to Virginia, to inform 
Tyler of the event; and on th 4th, the following official an¬ 
nouncement was made : 

“ Cisy of Washington, April 4th, 1841. 

11 Au all wise Providence having suddenly removed from 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


41 


this life, William Henry Harrison, late President of the Uni¬ 
ted States, we have thought it our duty, in the recess of Con¬ 
gress, and in the absence of the Vice President from the seat 
of Government, to make this afflicting bereavement known to 
the country, by this declaration under our hands. 

“ He died at the President's House, in this city, 4th day of 
April, a. D., 1841, at thirty minutes before 1 o’clock in the 
morning. The people of the United States, overwhelmed, 
like ourselves, by an event so unexpected, and so melancholy, 
will derive consolation from knowing that his death was calm 
and resigned, as his life has been patriotic, useful, and dis- 
tinguished ; and that the last utterance of his lips expressed 
a fervent desire for the perpetuity of the Constitution and 
the preservation of its true principles. In death, as well as in 
life, the happiness of his country was uppermost in his vhoughts. 

[Signed,] “DANIEL WEBSTER, Secretary of State . 

“ THOMAS EWING, Secretary of the Treas. 

“JOHN BELL, Secretary of War . 

“ J. J. CRITTENDEN, Attorney General. 

“FRANCIS GRANGER, Post-Master General” 

On the 9th of April, Tyler issued an address to the people. 
Among other things, he said : “ That for the first time in our 
history, the person elected to the Vice Presidency of the 
United States, by the happening of a contingency provided in 
the Constitution, has had devolved upon him the Presidential 
office.” (He must have felt keenly the sense of guilt that he 
deserved, and would receive the reproach of his countrymen 
when he penned the following sentence.) The spirit of faction, 
which is directly opposed to the spirit of lofty patriotism, may 
find it the occasion for assaults upon my Administration.” 

Thomas Benton remarks: “ Little did he think when he 
wrote the above sentence, that within three short months, 
within less time than a Commercial Bill of Exchange has to 
run, the great party which had elected him, and the Cabinet 
Officers should be united in that assault, and should lead the 
van of public outcry against him.” 


42 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


Betraying and deceiving friends, formed the leading traits 
of his character. By this course he became extremely us popu¬ 
lar. The number of Cabinent Officers appointed by Presi¬ 
dents holding only one term, run thus : John Adams, 12 ; 
John Quincey Adams 7 ; Van Buren 10; Polk 9 ; Fillmore 
11 ; Pierce 7 : Buchanan 8 ; John Tyler 21. This outnum¬ 
bered any of the two-term Presidents. Jackson, during the 
stormy times of both his Administrations, only had 19. If Ty¬ 
ler had served two terms at the same ratio, he would have 
had 42. 

Thus ends the account of the campaign and election; also 
of the mysterious and sudden death of President Harrison. 
We now propose to show more fully the motives that induced 
his murder, by following up the assassins in the future devel¬ 
opment of their plot. 

We mentioned in the preceding pages that five Southern 
men had visited the Piesident shortly after he took his seat. 
We gave the names of three—Calhoun, Gilmore and Upshur 
—the latter two from Virginia. There were two others in 
company, but their names have slipped our memory. These 
gentlemen, after having the conversation with President Har¬ 
rison, went directly to Richmond, Va., and from there to the 
Vice President John Tyler’s house. They there addressed 
him, as a Southern man, and wanted to get his views on the 
annexation of Texas. We do not pretend to give the precise 
words of their two days’ entertainment; only to demonstrate 
to the world that political intrigue and secret assassination 
were unanimously agreed upon, and afterwards successfully 
carried out. 

Harrison was to be secretly put out of the way, so that John 
Tyler would become the Constitutional President. To reward 
those who dyed their hands in his innocent blood, Tyler sol¬ 
emnly agreed to betray the party that elected him, and for¬ 
ever turn his back on its men and its measures ; and call, as 
his Cabinet advisers, the identical men who, by foul murder, 
had placed him in the Presidential Chair. It was not the 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


43 


Democratic Party that Tyler had made an alliance with, but 
it was with the nullifiers and secessionists ; men who, in the 
interests of slavery, had secretly sworn to devote their whole 
lives to accomplish the destruction of the Federal Union. 

The Whig Party very soon discovered that Tyler had turned 
his back on its policy; and on the 11th day of September, 
1841, Senator Dixon of Rhode Island, and Jeremiah Morrow 
of Ohio, both venerable with age, were appointed Presidents 
of a meeting held by the Whig Members of Congress. They 
issued what they termed a manifesto, renouncing said John 
Tyler. We copy the following : 

“ That he might be able to divert the policy of his Admin¬ 
istration into a channel which should lead to new political 
combinations, and accomplish results which must overthrow 
the present division of parties in the country, and finally pro¬ 
duce a state of things which those who elected him, at least, 
never contemplated.” Again : “He has violently separated him¬ 
self from those by whose exertions and suffrages he was elected 
to that office, through which he reached his present exalted 
situation. The existence of this unnatural relation is as extra¬ 
ordinary as the announcement of it is painful and mortifying.” 

On the same day of the manifesto, his Cabinet officers, all 
except Webster, resigned. He waited a short time to en¬ 
deavor to effect a union of the Whig Party, by which he said 
he meant the Whig President, Whig Congress, and whig Peo¬ 
ple. But Mr. Webster’s stay was short. 

This was what Tyler had been wishing for weeks—we 
mean the breaking up of the Cabinet. It gave him a chance 
to form a new one. He feels his way carefully, and only at 
the first selection brings in two of the secret cabal , as Henry 
Clay termed it—Alexander P. Upshur and Thomas W. Gil¬ 
more, Virginians. Both of these men had visited him at his 
house in Virginia, before General Harrison was poisoned. 
Thus Tyler was fulfilling his part of the contract with fidelity. 
Webster having remained longer than he was wanted as Sec¬ 
retary of State, had to be removed. Abruptness would have 
carried suspicion. Therefore, says Mr. Benton, a middle 


44 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OP 


course was adopted, the same which had been practiced 
with others in 1841—that of compelling a resignation. Mr. 
Tyler became reserved and indifferent to him. Mr. Gilmore 
and Mr. Upshur, with whom he had few affinities, took but little 
pains to conceal their distaste for him. It was evident to him, 
when the Cabinet met, that he was one too many. Reserve 
and distrust were visible both in the President and the Vir¬ 
ginia part of his Cabinet. Mr. Webster felt it, and mentioned 
it to some of his friends. They advised him to resign. He 
did so, and the resignation was accepted with alacrity, which 
showed it was waited for. Mr. Upshur took his place, and 
quickly the Texas negotiation became official, though still 
private ; and in the appointment and immediate opening of 
Texas negotiation stood confessed the true reason for getting 
rid of Mr. Webster.—2 d vol. Benton , 30 yrs. pp. 562. 

As we before stated, the object of the conspiracy, which 
terminated in the murder of President Harrison, was to se¬ 
cure the annexation of Texas as an outlet for slavery. The 
crime they had committed was so horrible, that the revenge 
of Almighty God soon overtook them. On the 28th of Feb¬ 
ruary, 1844, a very large gun on board of the Princeton was 
to be fired as an experiment. Many persons went on board to 
witness it, among whom were the two Cabinet officers, Mr. Gil¬ 
more and Mr. Upshur. The vessel had proceeded down the 
Potomac below the Tomb of Washington, and at 4 o’clock 
in the evening, when returning, it was determined to fire the 
gun once more. Lieutenant Hunt having charge, the guests 
were feasting at the table, when the word came that the gun 
was to be fired again. They all rushed out to see. President 
Tyler also being on board, was called back by some one, while 
his Cabinet favorites walked, as it were, right into the jaws 
of death. The great gun exploded, killing only five persons 
out of the great number. Among the five were Gilmore and 
Upshur. Tyler was saved from the same fate by being called 
back to the other end of the vessel. Kennon, Marcey, and 
Mr. Gardener of New York, (who would have been father-in- 
law to John Tyler,) were the other three killed. 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


45 


Sufficient of God’s displeasure, one would suppose, had been 
witnessed to induce this bad man to stop. But no ; the very 
prince of Nullifiers, the deadly foe of the National Govern¬ 
ment and peace of the country—the sworn enemy of Free¬ 
dom, and champion of Slavery—the secret mover of the at¬ 
tempted assassination of President Jackson, and poisoning of 
President Harrison—John C. Calhoun, was chosen Secretary 
of State, and John Y. Mason of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy ! 

Tyler’s Cabinet was now gathered entirely from the slave 
States, except William Wilkins of Pennsylvania. He had 
what the South called a reliable Cabinet; one that would go 
all lengths, and stop at nothing, to execute swiftly the will of 
the slave power. 

The ultimate object of the plot, of which the poisoning of 
General Harrison only served as a means to carry out, re¬ 
mained yet to be accomplished. The scheme was hatched 
in South Carolina during Van Buren’s term of office; and was 
the idea of getting more slave territory, through the annexa¬ 
tion of Texas. These bad men now pursued that object with 
a step as sure as time. A meeting was called in May, 1844, 
at Ashby, Barnwell district, South Carolina. The following 
is a part of the fourth resolution passed at that meeting: 
“ That the alternative be presented to the free States, either 
to admit Texas into the Union, or to peaceably and calmly ar¬ 
range the terms of a dissolution of the Union.” 

At another meeting, at Beaufort, same State, and about the 
same time, one of the resolutions was as follows : “ If Texas 
is not annexed, we solemnly announce to the world, that we 
will dissolve this Union sooner than abandon Texas. 

In the Williamsburg district, same State, another meeting 
was held. One resolution says: “We hold it to be better, 
and more to the interest of the South and southern portion of 
this Confederacy, to be out of the Union with Texas, than in 
it without her.” 

The reader can see by the foregoing extracts the dispo¬ 
sition of the slaveholders of South Carolina. “ Texas, or dis¬ 
union !” was the cry. The slave power had, by the foul deed 


46 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


of murder, got control of the National G-overnment; a slave- 
holding President; a slaveholding. Cabinet, except one. It 
only remained for South Carolina, by threats of disunion, to 
control Congress. Thus the bill to annex Texas to the Union, 
while she was still at war with Mexico, was forced upon Con¬ 
gress by the slave power. The bill passed the House by 23 
majority, but would have been defeated in the Senate if it 
had not been for the treachery of Calhoun and John Tyler. 
Five votes were secured by fraud. 

Thus speaks Mr. Benton, (who was himself in favor of an¬ 
nexation, but not by fraud :) “ He, the then Secretary of State, 
the present Senator from South Carolina, to whom I address 
myself, did it on Sunday, the second day of March ; that day 
which preceded the last day of his authority ; and on that day, 
sacred to peace, the Council sat that acted on the resolution ; 
and in the darkness of a night howling with storm and bat¬ 
tling with the elements, as if heaven frowned on the audacious 
act, the fatal messenger was sent off who carried the selected 
resolutions to Texas. The exit of the Secretary from office, 
and the start of the messenger from Washington should be 
remembered together.” 

Texas was admitted, and all the consequences of admission 
were incurred : war—the state of war—was established. With 
force did Benton remark, “ As Helen was the cause of the 
Trojan, and Antony the cause of the Roman civil war, and 
Lord North made the war of the Revolution, just so certainly 
is John C. Calhoun the author of the present war between 
the United States and Mexico.” 

What could be expected of an Administration that secured 
its power by foul treachery and secret murder. Tyler betrays 
the party who elected him. Having dyed his hands in inno¬ 
cent blood, he could not bear the company of the dead man’s 
friends ; even the principles that his victim had labored so 
many long years to carry out, he threw aside and tram¬ 
pled with disdain under his unholy and blood-stained feet. 
The annals of the world might be searched in vain for such a< 
villain. The man on whose popularity he had been exalted 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


47 


to high position, he reached up to, and stabbed. Well might 
Henry Clay say, speaking of Tyler: “ That he contemplated 
the death of General Harrison with mingled emotions of grief, 
of patriotism, and gratitude —above all, of gratitude /” 

He betrayed his partj^ and country, and at last human na¬ 
ture—by practising a cheat on a mighty nation, bringing on a 
useless and bloody war, for the sole and only purpose of ex¬ 
tending human slavery. 

War existed between the United States and Mexico, 
brought about by the foul administration of John Tyler, in an¬ 
nexing Texas. Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen, 
in favor of a protective Tariff, were the Whig candidates ; 
and James K. Polk and George M. Dallas were the Demo¬ 
cratic, and successful candidates. They went in favor of the 
annexation of Texas, and received 170 electoral votes, while 
Mr. Clay got 105. Eight slave States gave their electoral 
votes to Polk, and five in favor of Mr. Clay. 

James K. Polk, the newly elected President, came to Wash¬ 
ington and took his seat on the 4th of March, 1845. The 
chief business of his administration was to recognize the war, 
and prosecute it with vigor to a successful termination. Al¬ 
though originating and existing in the preceding administra¬ 
tion, it was not declared by act of Congress until the 13th of 
May, 1846. And it was not until the beginning of February, 
1848, that it was brought to a close. 

The terms of the treaty of peace, as made by Mr. Trist, 
the plenipotentiary of the United States, with the Mexican 
Government, included New Mexico and Upper California, 
with the Lower Rio Grande, from its mouth to El Paso, taken 
as the boundary of Texas. These were the acquisitions , for 
which the United States agreed to pay to Mexico fifteen mil¬ 
lions of dollars, in five instalments, annually after the first. 
The claims of American citizens against Mexico were to be 
assumed by the United States, limited to three and a quarter 
millions of dollars.* Thus terminated the war with Mexico, 

* The use of this money laid the foundation of the once vast fortune of Cor¬ 
coran, the well-known banker, traitor, and fugitive. 



48 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OP 


the great outlay of treasure by the G-eneral Government, with 
the immense loss of life, including many of its best citizens. 

Eighteen millions and a quarter was no small sum. Jeffer¬ 
son only paid fifteen millions for Louisiana ; and all the fore¬ 
going territory could have been acquired from Mexico in 
treating her respectfully for boundaries for even less than 
fifteen millions. Add to that the expense of a two year’s war, 
and altogether it amounts to over $200,000,000. 

Thus ended the annexation scheme. As it was hatched 
to get more slave territory, commenced by individual assas¬ 
sination, and ending in war, it was pursued from the begin¬ 
ning with a villainy which crime alone can excite. 

We must now take a view of the situation of parties. The 
slave and free States were now equal in number, and it was 
impossible to get one lone State admitted, as that would give 
a m-ajority to one or other of the parties ; but by coupling 
two together, which had previously been done with Arkansas 
and Michigan , when one was slave and the other /ree, 
they went in with a “ rush.” This worked so well before, 
that it was thought that, like bears in couples agree, Florida 
and Iowa would make a good pair, since they represented the 
two great principles of state. If they had been both black, 
or unfortunately both white, all would have been in vain. 
But when there was one of each color, they were admitted 
out of kindness, as lovers together. By this double process 
it kept the slave and free States always equal in number: 
but the annexation of Texas had brought in a large amount 
of new territory. The slave power now began to get uneasy, 
fearing, legislatively, that it would not be able to run slavery 
into it. It was 'power that was needed. Like the bachelor 
who married a widow who had already buried five husbands, 
when they were about to retire to bed the first night, Mr. 
Shuttlecock (for that was his name) remarked, “ My dear, I 
have always made it a rule in life, just before retiring to 
bed, to return thanks to the Giver of all good.” “ Oh ! how 
delighted I am,” says his new wife, “ it puts me. so much in 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


49 


mind of my first love ; Mr. Rogers, my first husband, always 
did this.” Both kneeling by the bedside, Mr. Shuttlecock 
commenced, “ 0, Lord, I adore thee to-night in a new capac¬ 
ity ; I need now thine assistance more than ever before ; please 
guide and direct —” “ Stop, stop ! my dear,” cries his ex¬ 
perienced bride, tapping him on the shoulder, “ I can do that; 
pray for strength ; strength is what you need most.” It was 
strength, although of a different kind, that the slave power 
wanted. 

The question with Calhoun was, where to get power to put 
slavery into the new territories. It was claimed that they 
were free under Mexico, and came into the Federal Govern¬ 
ment free. But Calhoun, needing strength, claimed that the 
American Constitution overrode and annulled all laws of 
Mexico inconsistent with it. “ Grant that,” said his oppo¬ 
nents, “ but where is the authority in the Federal Constitu¬ 
tion to carry slavery anywhere ?” 

Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, now stepped in and intro¬ 
duced what has since gone by the name of the Wilmot Pro¬ 
viso : “ That no part of the territory to he acquired should he 
open to the introduction of slavery .” 

Thus commenced the agitation, on the power of Congress 
to legislate about slavery. It was claimed that slavery had 
rights above Congress, and above the Federal Constitution 
also. The excitement on this vexed question began to spread, 
and the slave power again began to rally its forces. The term 
of President Polk was about drawing to a close, and it was 
doubtful whether slavery could be carried into New Mexico 
or California. The Southern members began to hold nightly 
meetings in Washington, the result of which was a kind of 
Southern declaration of independence, setting forth that 
“ Their grievances were greater against the United States 
Government than our ancestors’ were against Great Britain.” 
It was not only claimed, in this new declaration of independ¬ 
ence, that slavery was to be prohibited in part of the newly 
acquired territory, but it was boldly set forth that the Gen¬ 
eral Government was going to abolish slavery in all the 

4 


50 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


States, and bring on a conflict between the blacks and whites 
of the South, which might result in the whites becoming 
slaves. 

This declaration was signed by forty Southern members of 
Congress; and, to cap the climax, Mississippi and South Car¬ 
olina (the only two States that have more slaves than white 
inhabitants) passed acts in their General Assemblies calling 
for a Southern Convention to arrange a new government, to 
be called the United States South. 

The presidential election now began to take up the attention 
of all. The Democratic party had nominated, at Baltimore, 
Lewis Cass, of Michigan, for President, and Wm. 0. Butler, 
of Kentucky, as Vice President. This was in May, 1848. 
Yancey, of Alabama, endeavored to introduce into the Demo¬ 
cratic creed : “ That the doctrine of non-intervention with 
the rights of property of any portion of this Confederation, 
be it in States or Territories, by any others than the parties 
interested in them, is the true republican doctrine recognized 
by this party. Rejected * 246 against, 86 for. This makes 
Yancey the real author of the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. 

In June the Whig Convention met in Philadelphia, and 
nominated Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, for President, ancL 
Millard Fillmore, of New York, for Yice President. Taylor 
had the military prestige of Buena Vista, Montere} r , Palo 
Alto and Resaca de la Palma, which proved too heavy metal 
for the Democratic candidate. 

Martin Van Buren, who had been called the Northern man 
with Southern principles, now accepted the nomination of 
a third party as a candidate for the Presidency, with Charles 
Francis Adams as Vice President. The principles of this 
party were, that the General Government should abolish 
slavery where it had the power, prohibit its extension, and 
let it alone in the States where it existed ; thus the term 
Free Soilers. The election over, it soon became known that 
Taylor had carried seven free and eight slave States—163 elec¬ 
toral votes. Cass carried eight free and seven slave States 
—127 electoral votes. Van Buren and his party got none. 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


‘51 


President Polk’s administration, ended with a new threat to 
dissolve the Union, the old Bug-a-boo of the slave power. Af¬ 
ter getting Texas, they now wished to dissolve Polk, like 
Jackson, loved the Union, and never countenanced anything 
in his administration that threatened its overthrow. He was 
exemplary in private life, and in public, only aimed at the good 
of his country. 

At every Presidential election the contest with the slave 
power became more bitter. Like the miser, its greed in¬ 
creased with its gain ; getting much, it demanded more. 
Eight years before, it had dyed its hands in the blood of the 
lamented Harrison, and saturated its garments on the gory 
fields of Buena Yista, Palo Alto and Monterey. Resting yet 
restless through President Polk’s administration, it now re¬ 
appears with all its accumulated pomp, and like the Roman 
oxen, ribboned and garlanded for the sacrifice. 

President Taylor surveyed the situation, and suggested 
proper remedies to defeat the blood-thirsty foe of the Federal 
Union. About his first official act was to suppress the Cuban 
invasion, a darling scheme of the slaveholders to secure that 
Island at the hazard of a war with Spain. After President 
Taylor had written his first and only animal message, Calhoun, 
mortified at the defeat of the Cuban expedition, made a visit 
to the Department of State, and requested the President to 
say nothing in his forthcoming message about the Union. 
But this bad man had little influence over old “ Rough and 
Ready,” for after his visit the following remarkable passage was 
added : “ But attachment to the Union of the States should 
be habitually fostered in every American heart. For more than 
half a century, during which kingdoms and empires have 
fallen, this Union has stood unshaken. The patriots who 
formed it have long since descended to the grave, yet still it 
remains, the proudest monument of their memory, and the 
object of afiention and admiration of every one worthy to 
bear the American name. In my judgment its dissolution 
would be the greatest of calamities ; and to avert that should 
be the steady aim of every American. Upon its preserva- 


52 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OP 


tion must depend our own happiness, and that of countless 
generations to come. Whatever dangers may threaten it, I 
shall stand by it, and maintain it in its integrity to the full ex¬ 
tent of the obligations imposed, and power conferred, upon 
me by the Constitution.” 

The slave power had now determined to prevent the ad¬ 
mission of California into the Union as a State. It had the 
requisite population, and had formed a Constitution forbidding 
slavery; and President Taylor, in his message, recommended 
that it be admitted. Utah and New Mexico he recommended, 
without mixing the slavery question with their territorial 
governments, to be left to ripen into States, and then settle 
that question for themselves in their State Constitutions. 

The slave power had put a scheme on foot in Texas, by which 
that State claimed half of New Mexico, a province settled 
two hundred years before Texan independence. It wanted 
to settle this boundary by force of arms from Texas. But here 
the President was determined that the political and judicial 
authority of the United States should settle the boundary. 

The wrath of the slave holders now increased against him. 
Having before defeated their fillibustering scheme against Cu 
ba, recommending the admission of California with a Constitu¬ 
tion prohibiting slavery, and advising the dropping of the slave¬ 
ry question concerning New Mexico and Utah, and refusing to 
recognize the forged claims of the Texan slave holders to half 
of New Mexico ; and to the foregoing his pitting himself 
against Calhoun, in adding to his Message the above ex¬ 
tract, after the arch-traitor had requested that all mention of 
the Union should be excluded from it, the slave power had 
now sufficient reason to count him as an enemy, and his histo¬ 
ry gave them to understand that he never surrendered. Those 
having slavery politically committed to their care, had long 
before sworn that no person should ever occupy the Presiden¬ 
tial Chair that opposed their schemes in the interest of slave¬ 
ry. They resolved to take his life. 

To show the bitterness of the slave power, we make an ex¬ 
tract from Calhoun's speech, delivered after his visit to Presi- 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


53 


dent Taylor, and after the Annual Message of the latter ap¬ 
peared : “ It (the Union) can not then be saved by eulogies on 
it. However splendid or numerous the cry of Union, Union, the 
glorious Union, it can no more prevent disunion than the cry of 
Health, health, glorious health, on the part of the physician, 
can save a patient from dying, who is lying dangerously ill.” 

It was generally understood at Washington that the free 
soil wing of the Whig Party had the ear of President Tay¬ 
lor, and that Millard Fillmore had but little voice or influence. 
—See Orrmbfs History of the Whig Party , pp. 312. 

This the slave power understood, and they determined to 
serve him as they had previously served General Harrison; 
and only awaited a favorable opportunity to carry out their 
hellish intent. The celebration of the 4th of July was near 
at hand; and it was resolved to take advantage of that day, 
and give him the fatal drug. Being well planned, he received 
it at the right time, and with the same medical accurcy as did 
Gen. Harrison. 

The political magazine was purposely charged with the rest¬ 
less element of slavery. This was done to prepare a way for 
the President’s death, that it might pass unnoticed in the 
m’dst of the general explosion. Notwithstanding the. threat¬ 
ening of the slave power, the correspondent of the New York 
Evening Post telegraphed from Washington, July 3d, 1850, 
ihit “the President remains firmly determined to defend 
the possession of the United States Government to that ter¬ 
ritory at all hazards.” But the last charge was placed in 
the magazine when Ex-Governor Quitman, of Mississippi, tel¬ 
egraphed to Washington, on the same day, (3d) that he was 
ready, at the head of 10,000 men, to march on Santa Fe, New 
Mexico.” This was all done to force President Taylor to sub¬ 
mit to demands of the slave power. It failed; but it placed 
the torch to the fuse, and amid the excitement of the 4th of 
July, the explosion took place. It accomplished the object 
—victory and revenge through the death of the President . 

The New York Post of the 10th, says : “In the contention 
which has raged at the seat of Government, the stroke of 


54 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


death has fallen upon one to whom his station assigned no 
small part of the controversy—the Chief Magistrate of the 
country, Gen. Taylor.” He would undoubtedly have checked, 
by the most effectual means, any effort on the part of Texas 
to engage in a civil war with the people of New Mexico. The 
Post further says: “ It strikes us that it is by no means a for¬ 
tunate circumstance for the cause of freedom.” 

In the enjoyment of the most perfect health, the 4th being 
on Friday, he was taken sick in the afternoon about 5 o'clock, 
and on Monday evening at 35 minutes past 10 o'clock, he was 
dead. He died from the effects of the same kind of drug as 
was given to President Harrison. The symptoms in both cases 
were the same—an inward heat and thirst, accompanied by fe¬ 
ver. They were both well and hearty at the time the drug was 
given, and both died within a few days after taking it. Mr. 
Benton, speaking of the occurrence, says that “he sat out all 
the speeches, and omitted no attention which he believed the 
decorum of his station required. The ceremony took place on 
Friday, and on Tuesday following he was a corpse. The violent 
attack commenced soon after liis return to the Presidential Man¬ 
sion.” —Page 763, Vol. II. 

Gen. Taylor's case being considered by his physicians, (a 
portion of them having likewise attended General Harrison,) 
called it “billious cholera,” in other words, gastro-enteritis. 
No doubt produced, as Dr. Taylor on poisons, page 123, says, 
by “ instant poisons.” The whole of the circumstances in this 
case prove conclusively that he had been poisoned. He lived, 
as before stated, about the same length of time from the date 
of receiving the fatal drug which caused his death, as did 
General Harrison. The authority I have quoted in Gen. Har¬ 
rison's case, is applicable in that of Gen. Taylor's. Well may 
it be supposed that the assassin who had so managed the 
poison in General Harrison's case, knew well how to apply 
it to Gen. Taylor with equal success. See Grant's Letter. 

As President Harrison had been assassinated in about one 
month after taking his seat, it was not considered prudent to 
immediately dispatch President Taylor. Therefore, for the 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


55 


sake of policy, he was borne with for one year and four 
months. He was in favor of the good old Union, and was in 
a position to protect it if assailed. They knew he was a sol¬ 
dier that never surrendered. Patriotic, almost to devotion, 
and too much of a statesman to see his country divided by in¬ 
trigue, although himself owning slaves, still like Washington 
he was opposed to slavery extension, and would have rejoiced 
to have seen some plan devised by which it could be abol¬ 
ished. They slew him on Independence Day, while pouring 
out his soul in devotion to his country. 

“ With increased lustre on the march of time, 

Forever may his star of glory shine.” 

Millard Fillmore now became President. This individual 
has always been in favor of granting everything to slavery. 
Taylor, while alive, discerning his truckling disposition, gave 
him the cold shoulder. Thus, when Fillmore came into power, 
he discharged every Cabinet Officer that had served under 
President Taylor, and gathered around him new associates— 
men principally of the hush-up policy, who wanted peace in their 
day . 

It was left for Fillmore to sign the act admitting California, 
President Taylor having been assassinated before the bill 
passed Congress. After it had passed, ten Southern Sen¬ 
ators offered a protest. Of course their protest amounted 
to a burlesque. The yeas in the Senate was 34 ; nays, only 18. 

William M. Guyn, and John C. Fremont, were now ad¬ 
mitted as Senators from the new State, and thus ended the 
struggle with the slave power for the admission of California. 

Calhoun’s last speech was devoted chiefly to that subject. 
It was read by James M. Mason of Virginia, on the 4th of 
March, 1850. Calhoun was then sick and unable even to read 
it. This speech surpassed all that he had before delivered in 
bitterness against the Union. After asserting that all the 
principal cords that bound it together had been snapped asun¬ 
der, and nothing now remained to hold it together except 
force. 


56 


DESPERATE SCHEMES OF 


The next move to appease the slave power was the passage 
of the Fugitive Slave Law. The records and acts of the General 
Government, from its earliest organization, were scrutinized 
for authority to fall back on as a basis. This was one of the 
measures of Mr. Clay’s Compromise, which had to have a 
separate hearing, as he was unable to get all included in one 
bill. The vote on its passage in the Senate w r as, yeas 27, nays 
12. About twenty Senators did not vote either way, and 
were mostly against its passage. Butler, of South Carolina, 
was the father of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and Mason, of Vir¬ 
ginia, was its step daddy. 

President Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Bill, and has re¬ 
ceived the censure of a great portion of the Northern people for so 
doing. Whether he received sufficient intimation, after signing the 
bill admitting California, to intimidate him, we are not prepared to 
say. He is yet living, and perhaps can give an answer. One thing 
is certain, it has served as his political grave. It is not probable 
that twenty negroes were ever reclaimed under the action of the 
law. It was got up solely as a gag to the free States. “ That , or 
break up the Union J” was the cry. 

The time of another presidential election was approaching, and 
the flames of revolt were bursting out all over the South. In every 
quarter disunion meetings were being held, and treasonable toasts 
being drunk. Many and very violent speeches were made in the 
South Carolina Legislature. 

One remarked: “ We must secede .... If we can get but 
one State to unite with us, we must act. Once being inde¬ 
pendent, we would have a strong ally in England ; but we 
must prepare for secession.” 

Another said, “ He hated and detested the Union, and was 
in favor of cutting the connection.” He avowed himself a 
disunionist—a disunionist per se. If he had the power he 
would crush the Union to-morrow. 

In the Nashville Convention, one member remarked: “Se¬ 
cession, united secession of the slaveholding States, or a large 
number of them ; nothing else will be wise, nothing else will 
be practicable. The Rubicon is passed ; the Union is already 
dissolved.” Further : “ Should we be wise enough to unite, 


TRAITORS IN CONGRESS. 


57 


all California, with her exhaustless treasures, would be ours ; 
all New Mexico also.” 

The following was given as a Fourth of July toast : “The 
American Eagle :—in the event of a dissolution of the Union, 
the South claims as her portion the heart of the noble bird ; 
to the Yankees we leave the feathers and carcass.” 

One toast given at a meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, 
reads : “ The Union, founded by ignorance , and continued only 
by knavery 

Another Fourth of July toast was: “ The Union,—a splen¬ 
did failure of the first modern attempt by people of different in¬ 
stitutions to live under the same Government .” 

The administration of Millard Fillmore had become very 
unpopular with those who placed him in power. If Taylor 
had been permitted to live, and go through his term with the 
same determination as he commenced, the Whig party would 
have become strong and popular in the free States. But Fill¬ 
more’s course resulted in the entire annihilation of the party 
which elected him. 

During the term for which Zachary Taylor was elected, 
and Millard Fillmore served, three Senators of high influence 
in their party went to their final account. John C. Calhoun 
died on the last day of March, 1850. Henry Clay died in 
June of 1852. Daniel Webster, who was Secretary of State 
to Fillmore, died in October, 1852. Neither of the above 
lived to witness another Presidential election. Calhoun lived 
to hear the efforts of his two powerful opponents, Webster 
and Clay, in repty to his, read by Mason, on the 4th of March. 

The campaign of 1852, wherein Winfield Scott, as Presi¬ 
dent, and Wm. A. Graham, as Vice President, were the can¬ 
didates, was peculiar. Fillmore, by his conservatism , which 
amounted to submission , had completely disgusted the Free- 
soil element. It was generally understood that Scott and 
Graham were under the control of the views of this party. 
The compromise measures brought about by Mr. Clay in the 
latter part of his life, were approved by both the Whig and 
Democratic platforms. Many of Scott’s friends said they ac- 


58 


DESPERATE SCHEMES 


cepted his nomination, but “ spit upon the platform.” The 
conservative or submission wing of the party were opposed to 
what they regarded as sectional issues. 

Franklin Pierce for President, and Wm. R. King for Vice 
President, were the Democratic nominees. 

The platforms of the two parties were nearly the same, and 
the conservative or submissive wing of the Whig party left 
Scott and Graham to be supported by the Free-soil element, 
and went over in mass to the support of Pierce and King, 
the Democratic nominees. 

The reasons for nominating Scott were his alledged availa¬ 
bility and reliability. The platform represented all, and yet it 
poorly represented any of the party ; it embraced too much 
for some, and too little for others. With the Democrats, their 
platform was everything—the candidates nothing. Pierce was 
unknown and untried; like John Tyler he might betray the 
party, but they “ went it blind.” Election over, Pierce got 254 
electoral votes, carrying twenty-seven States, while Scott got 
only 42 electoral votes, securing only four States. 

The anti-slavery party first appeared with James G. Birney 
as its presidential candidate in 1840. It polled at this elec* 
tion 7,000 votes. In 1844, under the .same leader, it polled 
62,140 votes. The abolition of slavery in the District of Co¬ 
lumbia and Territories, was the demand of the party in both 
the above canvasses. In the contest of 1848 the vote of Van 
Buren and Gerrit Smith together was 296,282, and that of 
John P. Hale, in 1852, was 157,296. This party did not carry 
a single State at any of the four presidential elections. Their 
newspapers and public speakers charged the Democratic and 
Whig parties with diverting the National Government from 
the path originally designed by its founders into by-ways and 
hedges, for the exclusive interest of slavery. They referred 
to the proviso of Thomas Jefferson to prohibit the existence 
of slavery, after the year 1800, in all the Territories of the 
United States, Southern and Northern ; and they also referred 
to the Congress of 1784, when six States and sixteen dele¬ 
gates voted for that proviso, while only three States and 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


59 


seven delegates voted against it. These charges concerning 
the Whig and Democratic party were only partially histori¬ 
cally correct, but were prophecies of a coming time, true as 
any ever uttered by Isaiah or Jeremiah, and were exactly and 
literally fulfilled by the Man of Sin, Franklin Pierce, and his 
unfortunate administration. 

USURPING EXCLUSIVE CONTROL OP THE FEDERAL TERRITORY, AND 
FORCING SLAVERY INTO KANSAS. 

The South have always claimed that the Federal Con¬ 
stitution recognized slavery ; and that the slaveholders had 
the undisputed right to remove with their slaves into any 
of the Territories belonging to the General Government, 
and it was bound to protect them. The passage of the Mis¬ 
souri Compromise Act, which excluded slavery north of 36 
deg. 30 min., they viewed as a concession (unconstitution¬ 
al) on their part to preserve the peace of the country. Mr. 
Douglas placed his authority for disturbing that Compro¬ 
mise, on its being superseded by the Compromise of Mr. Clay, 
in 1850, which reads : 

“ Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by haw, and is not 
likely to be introduced into any territory acquired by the 
United States from Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to 
provide by law either for its introduction or exclusion from 
any part of said territory ; and that appropriate territorial 

governments ought to be established by Congress. 

without the adoption of any restriction or condition on the 
subject of slavery.” 

The following is the clause in the Nebraska and Kansas 
bill, introduced by Mr. Douglas, which repealed the Missouri 
Compromise : “ Which being inconsistent with the principle 
of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States 
and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, com¬ 
monly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared 
inoperative and void ; it being the true intent and meaning 
of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or State, 
nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof 



60 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
United States.” 

Many Senators spoke against it. On the 3d of March a 
long debate ensued ; Mr. Douglas speaking in favor of the bill 
until half past three in the morning. Samuel Houston, of 
Texas, the only Southern Senator who opposed its passage, 
continued speaking until near five o’clock in the morning of 
the 4th March, 1854, when the bill was pressed to a vote in 
the Senate and passed—yeas 37, nays 14. 

The bill amended, passed the House of Representatives 
May 22d, 1854—yeas 113, nays 100 ; only six members from 
slave States voting against it—Benton, of Missouri, Brigg, 
Collom, Etheridge and Nathaniel G-. Taylor, all of Tennes¬ 
see, and Millson of Ya. The vote on the final passage of the 
Senate bill, as amended by the House, was—yeas 35, nays 13. 

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a great tri¬ 
umph of the slave power. It was a virtual denial that Con¬ 
gress had any power over slavery in the Territories, either to 
legislate it into, or prohibit it from entering therein. 

In a speech in the Senate of the United States, in 1853, 
Atchison, of Missouri, remarked : “I have always been of the 
opinion that the first great error committed in the political 
history of this country was the Ordinance of 1787, rendering 
the Northwestern Territories free territory ; the next great 
error was the adoption of the Missouri Compromise.” 

Now the Ordinance of 1787 passed Congress July 13, 1787, 
just two months and four days before the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution. It was ceding the Territories belonging 
to several of the States to the General Government. It com¬ 
mences as follows: 

“ It is hereby ordained and declared by authority (of Con¬ 
gress) that the following articles shall be considered as ar¬ 
ticles of compact between the original States and the people 
and States in said territory, and forever remain unaltered, 
unless by common consent. 

u Article YI.—There shall be neither slavery nor involun- 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


61 


tary servitude in said territory otherwise than in the punish¬ 
ment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly con¬ 
victed, provided always, that any person escaping into the 
same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any 
one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully re¬ 
claimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor 
or service as aforesaid.” 

The last part of the above article was dictated by the same 
interest and influence that two months afterwards engrafted 
into the Constitution of the United States the last clause of 
Section 2d, Article 4th. 

While this act made free the Northwest Territory, it also 
established the basis for the Fugitive Slave Act. 

Congress then had exercised the power to legislate con¬ 
cerning slavery in the territories ; first, the Ordinance of 
1787 ; second, the Missouri Compromise, of 1820. 

The slave interest never acquiesced in either of these 
measures. They claimed that slavery was above compromise , 
Congress, and the Constitution ; no compromise could restrict 
it; no Congress could prohibit it from extending into the 
Territories ; and the Constitution guarded and recognized 
it, while the Supreme Court, as property, protected it. This 
was the sentiment of the slavery propagandists ; while those 
wishing to restrict its extension in later years pointed to 
1787 and 1820, as precedents which sustained their position. 
If Congress could make free the Northwest Territory, and 
prohibit slavery above 36 deg. 30 min., why could it not pro¬ 
hibit it from entering any Federal Territory ? 

The controversy on this question was always exciting Con¬ 
gress, and through Congress the country. Mr. Clay designed 
his Compromise of 1850 to quiet the agitation. Mr. Douglas, 
in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, thought, by re¬ 
moving the question from Congress, the people in the terri¬ 
tories might peaceably settle it at their own time and in their 
own way. But in this (though meaning well) they both were 
mistaken. The old Harlequin, fresh from his conflicts against 
the Union in Congress, with mischief in his head, honey on his 


62 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


tongue, treason in his heart, and lust in his eye, seeks out Kan¬ 
sas, which had been kept pure by the Missouri Compromise 
for forty years. After being kicked out of Congress on the 
22d of May, 1854, notwithstanding that entire country was 
north of 36 deg. 30 min., in defiance of his sacred obligations 
with the Federal Government in 1820, he now enters that 
peaceful Territory, with all his accustomed pomp and show of 
authority, and commits a political rape on its virgin soil. 

The slaveholders not only in Missouri, but in other slave 
States, took Mr. Clay’s and Mr. Douglas’s view of the subject, 
and as early as 1851 commenced to emigrate to that region. 
In 1854, the excitement in Missouri was intense, determined 
to make Kansas a slave State. 

John Scott’s affidavit, page 898, Kansas Committee Report, 
shows that secret societies were then in existence, to force 
slavery into Kansas. This was a year before any person en¬ 
tered the Territory through the influence of the New England 
Aid Society. See the affidavit of Matthew R. Walker, page 
898 ; also, that of H. Rolinson, page 900, which prove that 
no persons were sent out through that association, until the 
last of March, 1855. 

Governor Andrew H. Reeder of Easton, Pa., and other of¬ 
ficers appointed by President Jefferson Davis Pierce on the 1st 
of July, arrived in that Territory on the 7th day of October, 
1854. Yet, long before this arrival, the slaveholders had 
everything ready. Secret Societies w^ere every where organ¬ 
ized in Missouri and Kansas, under the names of “ Social Bond,” 
“ Blue Lodge,” “ Friends Society ,” and “ Friends of the South.” 
These societies were all got up to drive Free State Men out 
of the Territory, and to make Kansas a slave State. So com¬ 
pletely were the pro-slavery agitators organized, that in 
the month following the Governor’s arrival, November 29, 
1854, Samuel Woodson, a lawyer of Independence, Missouri, 
appeared at the territorial polls at Douglas, for the election 
of a delegate to Congress, with 200 Missourians to vote. Out 
of 261 votes cast, only 85 were given by actual settlers. 

4th District. —Dr. Chapman’s Missourians, from Cass and 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


63 


Jackson Counties, numbering 140 men, camped out all night; 
they said they came to vote to make Kansas a slave State. 
Out of 161 votes, only 30 were legal. 

5 th District. —Sixty-two Missourians went into this district 
by the Santa F6 road, and out of 82 votes cast, only 20 were 
given by residents of Kansas. They also said they came to 
vote Kansas a slave State. 

6 tli District .—Out of 105 votes cast, 80 were from Missouri. 

1 ith District .—Election was held at Frey McGee's, called 
110. The number of voters residing in this district did not 
exceed 40, only 20 of whom voted ; yet 604 votes were polled, 
584 of which were from Missouri. Here the Missourians 
voted for absent friends, whom they said instructed them to 
vote for them, as they could not attend. 

llth District .—Polled 255, of which 238 were illegal. 

15 th District .—Polled 312 votes. The Missourians from 
Clay, Ray, and Platt Counties, came, they said, to make Kan¬ 
sas a slave State. One hundred and sixty illegal votes were 
cast in this district. At this election, Nov. 29, 1854, 1,729 il¬ 
legal votes were cast, to make Kansas a slave State. 

The residents of the Territory were completely overawed, 
and took very little interest in the election. In fact, not more 
than one-half of them went to the polls. Gen. Whitfield, the 
candidate of the pro-slavery mob, was elected. He received 
2,298 votes. Wakefield received 248, and Flenniken 305. 
Thus Whitfield secured his election as a delegate to Congress, 
for the Territory of Kansas. 

All this rascality was practised before the New England 
Aid Society was in existence, it being organized only the 21st 
of February, 1855. 

In January and February Gov. Reeder authorized the enu¬ 
meration of the entire population to be taken ; it showed 
5,128 males, 3,883 females, 2,905 voters, 3,469 minors, 7,161 
natives of the United States, 408 foreign birth, 151 free ne¬ 
groes, and 192 slaves—making a total of 8,601. 

The Governor now issued a proclamation for an election 
for members of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory, 


64 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


to be held on the 30th of March, 1855. Thirteen Members of 
the Council and twenty-six Representatives were to be 
elected. The high-handed rascality previously practised was 
known to have been sanctioned at Washington, which gave 
additional license for its repetition at this election on a large 
scale. From Andrew County, in the north, to Jasper county, 
in the south, and as far east as Cole County, Missouri, men 
were organized into parties, and sent into every council dis¬ 
trict in the Territory, and into every representative district 
but one, to vote—4,908 thus went to vote at this March elec¬ 
tion ; they went armed and equipped. S. Young and C. F. 
Jackson had command of a portion ; they had guns, rifles, 
pistols, bowie knives, and two pieces of artillery loaded with 
musket balls. This party camped near Lawrence, about one 
thousand strong. In the evening preceding the election these 
ruffians held a meeting at the camp, and sent about two hun¬ 
dred of their party into adjoining districts to vote. Those 
remaining to vote at Lawrence had white ribbons in their 
coats to distinguish them from the settlers—1,034 votes were 
cast, over 800 of which were illegal. In the eighteen districts 
the number of votes cast at this (30th of March, 1855) elec¬ 
tion was 6,307 ; total legal vote cast, 1,410 ; illegal vote, 
4,908. The free State vote was 791. Hundreds of free State 
men were driven from the polls, yet the free State party had a 
majority of 172 above all the legal votes cast in the Territory. 

The members thus elected held caucus meetings, during 
the coming in of the returns, at Westport and Shawnee Mis¬ 
sion, and many of them secretly and openly declared that if 
Governor Reeder did not publicly acknowledge the legality 
of their election they would take his life. 

The Governor says : “ I made arrangements to assemble a 
small number of friends for defence, and on the morning of 
the 6th of April I proceeded to announce my decision upon 
the returns. Upon one side of the room were arrayed the 
members elect, nearly, if not quite, all armed ; and on the 
other side about fourteen of my friends, who, with myself, 
were also armed.” 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


65 


The bogus Missouri Legislature, that this same force had 
indirectly brought into existence, met at Pawnee, July 2d, 
1855. The Council was composed of 18 members, 15 of whom 
were from the slave States, 1 from Ohio, 1 from Indiana, and 
1 from New York. 

The House of Representatives had 35 members, 29 of whom 
were natives of slave States, 1 of Kansas Territory, 2 of 
Ohio, 2 of Pennsylvania, 1 of New York, cursing negro-steal¬ 
ers, and swearing that slavery shall be upheld, and that the 
virgin soil of Kansas shall never be polluted with the foul 
stain of Free-soil-ism ; the Union only when it protects sla¬ 
very. Every member of the House was pro-slavery except 
S. D. Hunter, a native of Ohio, and he resigned. Against this 
worse than rascality, the free States turned their backs. 

The house in which they met had neither doors nor win¬ 
dows, and but a temporary floor. While engaged in this high¬ 
handed atrocity, that dreadful scourge, the Asiatic cholera, 
broke out amongst them. To avoid the wrath which high 
Heaven was pouring on their guilty heads, they fled to Shaw¬ 
nee Mission. Here the Governor refused to recognize them, 
except by vetoing the tyrannical acts they were passing. 
Mortified at such proceedings, he came out against them, and 
was the author of a set of resolutions passed at Big Springs, 
the first of which was : 

“ Resolved , That we owe no allegiance or obedience to the 
tyrannical enactments of the spurious Legislature ; that their 
laws have no validity or binding force upon the people of 
Kansas.” 

Gov. Reeder arrived in Washington in the beginning of 
May, 1855. He had previously written several confidential 
letters to the President, giving a detailed history of events. 
Pierce expressed himself, at the first interview, as highly 
pleased and satisfied with the Governor’s course, and, says 
Reeder, “in the most unequivocal language approved and en¬ 
dorsed all I had done.” 

But Jeff*. Davis demanded Reeder’s removal. This placed 
the President in a new position, and he therefore immediately 


66 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


went to work to induce Reeder to resign. “At the next in¬ 
terview he expressed great fear/’ says Reeder, “ for my per¬ 
sonal safety if I returned to the Territory, and offered to ap¬ 
point me Minister to China, alleging that McLane, then Min¬ 
ister, was about to return home.” To this new proposition 
the Governor remarked, that if he could be satisfied that the 
people of Kansas would be as fully cared for as if he re¬ 
mained in office, and a successor was appointed who would 
resist the aggressive invasion from Missouri, he was willing 
to coincide. 

Pierce assured him that he would appoint some honorable, 
apright, Northern man, who was above intimidation and cor¬ 
ruption, and one that would faithfully perform his duty. At 
this interview he requested Pierce to issue a proclamation re¬ 
citing what had been done in Kansas, and strongly disap¬ 
proving it, and pledging his administration against foreign 
interference with Kansas affairs. Pierce now began to talk 
about Kansas Emigrant Aid Societies, and Reeder began to 
suspect. At the next interview the Governor said to the 
President: “ It is evident that you are about to make conces¬ 
sions in the wrong direction. I have had a great opportunity 
to ascertain the facts, and I consider this a clear case of ag¬ 
gression on Northern rights, and whatever of concession or 
compensation is to be made should be to the North, and not 
to the South ; the interests (continued the Governor) of the 
Democratic party and the principles of truth and justice 
loudly require it.” 

Pierce, fearing to dismiss Reeder, offers a bribe. “ If (says 
the incorruptible Jefferson Davis Pierce) the vacation of your 
office could be satisfactorily adjusted, all matters could be ar¬ 
ranged in such a way as to promote your 'personal interests .” 

The Governor considered himself insulted, and refused to 
reply, and also refused to resign, and left the room. Pierce 
waited until the last of July and then removed him. Reeder 
received his notice to quit on the 15th of August, 1855. Thus 
ended the administration of the first Territorial Governor of 
Kansas. lie was appointed by the administration as a friend 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


67 


of slavery. He said liimself that he was always in favor of 
granting the compromises which had satisfied the South, and 
secured their rights against the clamors of anti-slavery men. 
—Page 943, Kansas Reports . 

The animal in Kansas he was unable to tame, 

Although concession to slavery was his political game. 

The abolition clamor he had always despised, 

But his experience as Governor wide opened his eyes. 

Wilson Shannon now received the appointment from the 
President to take the place of Gov. Reeder. Mr. Shannon 
went out from the bosom of the pro-slavery administration at 
Washington with decisive instructions. He proceeded to Shaw¬ 
nee Mission, and in a loyal epistle to the President, dated Nov. 
28, 1855, calls the pro-slavery agitators the “ Law and order 
party.” The Free State Men, he termed violent “ Abolition¬ 
ists.” Notwithstanding the Governor well knew that in April 
of that year Malcomb Clark, a rigid pro-slavery man had 
commenced a deadly assault on Cole McCrea, at a meeting at 
Leavenworth. And it was also known to him how Mr. Phillips, 
a lawyer of the same place, had been violently seized and taken 
across the river into Missouri, tarred and feathered, and rode 
on a rail, and his head shaved on one side ; after which they 
went through the mockery of selling him at auction, com¬ 
pelling a negro to act as auctioneer. He also knew that R. 
R. Rees, and other members of the bogus Kansas Legisla¬ 
ture, publicly encouraged and justified these lawless outrages. 
He also knew that officers holding high position, such as Judge 
Lecompt, Associate Judge, S. G. Cato, and J. M. Burnell, 
Judge Wood, of the Police Court of Douglas County, and S. 
J. Jones, Sheriff of the same County, with Marshal Donald¬ 
son, had organized themselves and friends, to the number of 
30, into a Vigilance Committee. He knew that in their offi¬ 
cial capacity they winked at gambling, for it was a favorite 
amusement to join Sheriff Jones in a game of poker at 10 
cent ante. 

About this time, 1855, John Brown, of Harper’s Ferry no- 


68 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


toriety, emigrated to Kansas, and settled in Osage County. 
He was an Abolitionist, and soon became the object of the 
most violent assaults from the Missourians. One of his sons, 
Frederick* was met by a party of these invading ruffians, 
alone in the road, and murdered in cold blood. His body 
was stripped of its raiment, and his privates cut off and stuck 
in his mouth . John, another son, for being an Abolitionist, 
was caught, loaded with chains, and driven on foot before 
the horses of his captors, from Ossawatomie to Tecumseh. 
The cruelty was such that his reason was destroyed. The 
house of the old man, as well as that of his son, was set on 
fire and destroyed. The female portion of his family were 
grossly insulted, and attempts made to ravish them. Brown 
was now ordered to leave the Territory in three days, or sub¬ 
mit to be hung. The five men who thus warned him, did not 
survive many hours. The only reply Brown made, was, “you 
will not find me here then , gentlemen ! ” Before the next sun 
rose, they were in eternity. If he had not killed them, they 
certainly would have hung him. 

Brown’s fame as a warrior now began to spread ; and H. 
Clay Pate, with a party of thirty-three, started from Westport, 
Missouri, to capture the old man. Brown heard of his com¬ 
ing, and with a party of sixteen men met Pate at Black Jack, 
near the Santa F4 road. After a short fight, a few being 
killed, the gallant Pate surrendered. Coleman, the murderer 
of Dow, was with Pate, but he was well mounted, and, with a 
Wyandot Indian named Long, made his escape. 

At another time Whitfield raised in Jackson county, Mis¬ 
souri, two hundred and twenty men to capture Brown. The 
old man heard of the move, and gathered up one hundred 
and sixty men, and took up a position on the Santa Fe road, 
where he knew Whitfield would have to pass. Fifty of his 
men had Sharp’s rifles, which would kill at half a mile. The 
rest of his party he had concealed in the timber to make the 

* Rev. Martin White, Methodist preacher of the South Church, boasted in the 
bogus Kansas Legislature in 1856, that he killed Fred. Brown r and. thanked God 
for it. The last words were applauded by the members .—Lawrence Herald of 
Freedom. 




SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


69 


attack on the flank. Colonel Sumner, of Fort Leavenworth, 
heard of the expected battle, and came with a squad of dra¬ 
goons, and dispersed both parties. Sumner remarked that it 
was fortunate for the Missourians that he had arrived, for 
Brown was so fixed that he would have killed and captured 
the entire party. 

In 1856 John Reid, a lawyer of Jackson county, and mem¬ 
ber of the Missouri Legislature, raised three hundred men, 
and two pieces of artillery, and marched on Ossawatomie. 
Brown this time was taken by surprise ; he gathered his 
forces, and had barely time to get into the timber which lines 
the Osage river with only thirty men and a limited supply of 
amunition. The enemy soon came in full view. Brown, al¬ 
though they were ten to one against him, commenced the 
fight. Reid, not knowing his numbers, and fearing an ambus¬ 
cade, would not venture into the woods, and his artillery did 
but little harm, as Brown’s men lay flat on their faces, their 
guns loading at the breech. Sixty-seven of Reid’s men were 
soon killed and wounded ; only two of Brown’s men were 
killed. He retired up the river through the timber and 
crossed the ford. 

Gambling, theft, burglary, forgery, rape and murder, werfe 
all encouraged when committed on or against Free State Men 
or Abolitionists. Speaking of these times, Committee Re¬ 
port, page 65, says : “ All the restraints which American cit¬ 
izens are accustomed to pay even to the appearance of law, 
were thrown off. Homicides became frequent. All the pro¬ 
visions of the Constitution of the United States, securing per¬ 
sons and property, were wholly disregarded. The officers of 
the law, instead of protecting the people, were engaged in 
these outrages, and in no instance did we learn that any man 
was arrested, indicted, or punished for any of these crimes.” 

Such were the men who represented the Administration of 
Pierce in Kansas. Reeder having repudiated them, Wilson 
Shannon was sent out to become their leader and confidential 
adviser. He assured these bad men that the administration 
would use, if necessary, all the Federal forces stationed in the 


70 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


districts to make Kansas a slave State. Franklin M. Coleman, 
a resident of Hickory Point, and native of Brook Co., Vir¬ 
ginia, had been to the Shawnee Mission to receive the ap¬ 
pointment of Justice of the Peace. Enlivened and encour¬ 
aged by the remarks of the Governor, he returned to his 
home, feeling strong in the pro-slavery cause, and on the 27th 
of November,'1855, shot and killed a peaceable and inoffen¬ 
sive citizen by the name of Dow, a Free State Man, native of 
Ohio. 

Coleman went immediately to the Shawnee Mission, right 
into the arms of Gov. Shannon, for protection. Not finding 
Shannon at home, he sought out Sheriff Jones, of Douglas 
county, who was at or near the Mission at the time. Jones 
was the Sheriff of the county where the crime was com¬ 
mitted. The Sheriff and Coleman went to Lecompton, where, 
without form of law, without issuing a writ, entered $500 straw 
bail, and Coleman continued free. As the murder was viewed 
as political, the free State men threatened vengeance on those 
who had been instrumental in committing, or justifying the 
fatal crime. Instead of being punished, Coleman found the 
officers of the law his justifiers and protectors. This course 
greatly enraged the free State party. Jacob Branson, a free 
State resident of Hickory Point, and intimate friend of the 
murdered man, had, with others, been freely expressing his 
feelings about this high-handed outrage. One Harrison Buck- 
ley, and Josiah Hargis, both of these men were implicated 
with Coleman in the murder of Dow. 

On the 26th of November a large meeting was held on the 
identical spot where Dow was killed. At this meeting reso¬ 
lutions were passed, one of which reads : 

“ Whereas, Charles W. Dow, a citizen of this place, was mur¬ 
dered on Wednesday afternoon last; and whereas evidence, 
by admission and otherwise, fastens the guilt of said murder 
on one F. M. Coleman ; and whereas facts indicate that other 
parties, namely, Buckley, Hargis, Wagner, Reynolds and Moo¬ 
dy, and others were implicated in said murder '; and whereas 
facts further indicate that said individuals and parties are 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


71 


combining for the purpose of harassing and murdering un¬ 
offending citizens; and whereas we are now destitute of law, 
even for the punishment of crime, in this Territory : 

“ Resolved , That a Vigilance Committee of twenty-five be 
appointed, whose duty it shall be to bring the above-named 
individuals, as well as Jbhose connected with them in this 
affair, to justice.’ 7 

It was at this time, when the public pulse had been greatly 
excited by the murder and outrage, on the very same eve¬ 
ning of the meeting, that pro-slavery Sheriff Jones, with a 
posse of twenty-five ruffians, armed with a peace warrant, 
which had been procured for the purpose from a pro-slavery 
Justice, by Harrison Buckley, entered said Branson’s bourse, 
breaking in the door, at the dead of night, and with deadly 
weapons in their hands presented and aimed at his head, 
commanded him to put on his clothes, or they would blow 
out his brains. Branson being a highly respectable citizen, 
with whom Mr. Dow, the murdered man, before his death 
had boarded, his friends met the Sheriff and his party at 
Bolton’s Bridge. Jones, in the meantime, had told Branson 
that he heard there were one hundred men at his house, but 
was sorry when he found it untrue, for it cheated him out of 
his expected sport. Just when this conversation was going 
on, a party of about forty formed in a line across the road. 
Jones and his party halted and cried out, “ What’s up ?” 
“ That’s just what we want to know ; what’s up ?” was the 
reply. Branson said they had got him a prisoner. Some one 
in the rescuing party told him to come over to their side ; he 
did so, dismounted the mule, and drove it back to Jones. 
Jones and his party were then permitted to go about their 
business. Two of the men who were implicated in Dow’s 
murder were with Jones as aids, and it was believed that 
Coleman was with him also. This was the alleged cause for 
Gov. Shannon’s Wakarusa war. 

Sheriff Jones, immediately on his return, sent Hargis with 
a note to Governor Shannon, informing him of what had oc¬ 
curred, winding up with this : “You may consider an open 


72 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


rebellion as having already commenced, and I coll upon you 
for three thousand men to carry out the laws.” 

[Signed] SAMUEL J. JONES, 
Sheriff of Douglus County . 

To His Excellency 
Wilson Shannon, 

Governor of Kansas Territory . 

Nov. 27, 1855. 

Shannon immediately authorized Major General Wm. P. 
Eichardson, of Doniphan County, to collect as large a force as 
he could in his division, and bring them with all speed to Le- 
compton. Six days after this request was made, Eichardson 
was at Lecompton with about 2,000 men. Word was also sent 
to Gen. Strickler, at Tecumseh, [distant about 12 miles from 
Lecompton,) to gather immediately as many men as possible, 
and come in all haste to Lecompton. Strickler brought about 
75 men. Official orders were sent to both of these Generals, 
dated on the same day of Jones’ demand, (27th of November.) 
Copies of these official orders of the Governor were taken by 
Jones’ force, and circulated in that part of Missouri bordering 
on Kansas. This part of the State has about 50,000 slaves. 
The story, as told, was that the Territorial law had been set 
at defiance, and Jones, the Sheriff of Douglas county, a Vir¬ 
ginian, and a strong pro-slavery man, had been threatened 
with death, and no doubt ere this had been murdered by an 
abolition mob. 

The long wished-for opportunity had now arrived (that was 
an excuse) to enter Kansas and, at the point of the bayonet, 
drive the hated free State men out of the Territory. Old 
age and youth began to assemble at the camp at Wakarusa. 
Shannon said these men came there to fight; the} r did not 
want peace ; it was war to the knife ; they would come, and 
it was impossible to prevent them. They came to serve under 
Sheriff Jones, and he readily enrolled them in his posse. 

Generals Eichardson and Strickler had under their com¬ 
mand about 275 men. The forces thus assembled to com¬ 
mence the anticipated sport of murdering free State men and 


> 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


73 


abolitionists, on the 2d of December, 1855, numbered about 
1,500 men, 925 of which were from Missouri. Shannon now 
began to understand and dread the consequences of calling 
together the pro-slavery mob. 

General Eastin, commander of the Northern brigade, Kan¬ 
sas militia, had written to the Governor, dated Leavenworth, 
Nov. 30, 1855, that the free State men, one thousand strong, 
were well fortified at Lawrence, with cannon and Sharp’s 
rifles. Eastin suggested in this letter that the Governor call 
out the United States troops stationed at Leavenworth. 
The Governor telegraphed (Dec. 1st) from Kansas City to 
President Pierce, and at the same time sent a message to Col. 
Sumner, commander of 1st cavalry, U. S. A., at Fort Leaven¬ 
worth, informing him of what he had done and requesting 
the Colonel’s co-operation. Sumner replied, (Dec. 1st, 1855,) 
“ I do not feel that it would be right in me to act in this im¬ 
portant matter until orders are received from the Govern¬ 
ment.” 

Shannon now sent a letter to Gen. Richardson, commanding 
the Territorial militia, informing him that he had also sent 
Sheriff Jones a letter stating that he was endeavoring to 
procure the aid of the Federal forces, and requesting that 
they use every effort to preserve law and order ; also warn¬ 
ing Jones that the forces under him were poorly armed, and 
would be ill prepared to come in contact with the free State 
party, who were well supplied with Sharp’s rifles. Jones in¬ 
forms the Governor by letter, on Dec. 4th, that he has suffi¬ 
cient force to protect him in serving the writ, and thinks he 
had better not wait for the aid of the Federal forces, but to 
“ pitch in on his own hook.” He tells the Governor that the 
strength of the free State men has been greatly exaggerated ; 
he has now in his hands warrants for sixteen persons who 
were with the party that rescued Branson. On this very day, 
a mob headed by Judge Tompson and Capt. Price, broke open 
the United States Arsenal at Liberty, Mo., and took three 
6-pounders, swords, pistols, rifles and ^munition. 

Gen. Richardson writes to Gov. Shannon, dated Dec. 3, 


74 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


that it is essential to the peace of the Territory that the free 
State men should surrender their Sharp’s rifles, and requests 
the Governor to give him authority to make the demand. 

About this time the Governor had received a reply from 
the President, stating that he would use all the power at his 
command to preserve order in the Territory, and to enforce 
execution of the laws. He immediately sent a letter to Col. 
Sumner; also the telegraph dispatch he had received from 
President Pierce ; on the strength of which Sumner imme¬ 
diately started with his regiment (Dec. 5th) to meet the Gov¬ 
ernor at the Delaware crossing of the Kansas that evening. 
But the Governor did not receive Col. Sumner’s dispatch 
until the morning of the 6th. 

Messrs. Lawrence and Babcock, citizens of Lawrence, and 
representatives of the free State men, now waited on the Gov¬ 
ernor and informed him that an armed mob was surrounding 
the town, and requested him to use his authority to preserve 
the peace, and protect the place. The Governor calculated 
for the Government troops under Sumner to march into the 
town of Lawrence, and thus protect the place from assault 
by the pro-slavery mob of fifteen hundred men under Jones, 
Richardson and Strickler. 

In the afternoon of Dec. 5th the Governor left Shawnee 
Mission. He went by the way of Westport, Missouri, to pro¬ 
cure the aid of Col. Boone, a grandson of Daniel Boone. His 
object was to procure his influence over the pro-slavery men. 
They started for Lawrence ; on the way they were met by a 
dispatch from Col. Sumner stating that on mature reflection 
he had concluded not to move until he had received direct 
orders from the Government. Boone and the Governor hur¬ 
ried on to the pro-slavery camp at Wakarusa, (within six 
miles of Lawrence.) This was under the command of Gen. 
Strickler. Gen. Richardson, who commanded another force 
of the same character at Lecompton, about 18 miles distant, 
had been requested by the Governor, with other leading pro¬ 
slavery men at that place, to meet him at Wakarusa. They 
arrived, and the Governor appointed 8 o’clock in the eve- 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS* 


75 


ning at his quarters for an interview. About forty of the 
leading pro-slavery men were there. They were all, except 
one, determined on the destruction of Lawrence, to which 
course the Governor was opposed. The conference broke 
up about midnight, having accomplished nothing. The Gov¬ 
ernor informed them that he intended on the 7th (to-morrow) 
to go to Lawrence, and ascertain to what terms the free State 
party would accede. 

The Governor immediately sent an express to Col. Sumner, 
informing him that “ it is hard to restrain the pro-slavery 
men from making an attack upon Lawrence ; they are beyond 
my power—at least soon will be.” Col. Sumner refused, without 
direct orders from Washington, to participate. The pro¬ 
slavery mob did not want the United States troops to inter¬ 
fere, as they felt all-powerful without them. They now be¬ 
came clamorous, and refused to wait longer for diplomacy, 
threatened to take matters into their own hands and raise the 
black flag. 

The Governor, on the 7th, entered Lawrence, and had an 
interview with Gen. J. H. Lane and Charles Robinson. The 
Governor dreading his own men, felt that moments were hours 
to the citizens of Lawrence. He there stated he was satisfied 
that, he misunderstood its people and the territory, and that they 
were innocent, and had violated no law. Not one of the per¬ 
sons against whom Jones had writs, were in Lawrence, and 
the Governor could not persuade the citizens of Lawrence 
to deliver up their arms to a mob. He gave orders to Gen. 
Richardson to suppress any unauthorized demonstrations 
against Lawrence, at every hazard, informing him that the 
people were willing to make concessions. 

A treaty was agreed on and entered into, on December 8th ? 
1855. The treaty sets forth “ that the rescue of By'anson was 
without the knowledge or consent of the people of Lawrence, and 
denies all knowledge by the Free State Men of any organization in 
the Territory to resist the laws; and requires Gov. Shannon to 
use his influence to secure the people of Kansas Territory re¬ 
muneration for damages suffered at the hands of Sheriff 


76 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


Jones and his posse, and also affirms that Gov. Shannon never 
called on the people of any other State to aid in executing the 
laws. ' [Signed] WILSON SHANNON, 

CHARLES ROBINSON, 

J. H. LANE. 

Lawrence, K. T., Dec. 8th , 1855. 

The Governor, now issued orders, December 8th, to Gen. 
Richardson and Strickler, and Sheriff Jones, to disband their 
forces, as matters had been arranged to the satisfaction of all 
parties. But the Governor was fearful of a refusal so to do, 
and on the 9th, next day, put the following authority into the 
hands of the Free State Men : 

“ To C. Robinson and J. H. Lane, Commanders of the enrolled 
Citizens of Lawrence :—You are hereby authorized and directed 
to take such measures, and use the enrolled forces under your 
command in such manner, for the promotion of the peace and 
the protection of the people of Lawrence and its vicinity, as 
in your judgment will best secure that end. 

“WILSON SHANNON. 

“ Lawrence, Dec. 9 th, 1855.” 

Major Clark, formerly an Arkansas editor, and one Colonel 
Burns, of Weston, Missouri, and Dr. Johnson, son of the then 
Governor of Virginia, on the 6th of December, 1855, while 
Mr. Thomas W. Barber and his brother, and brother-in-law, 
were peaceably going from Lawrence to their home, about 
nine miles distant, when about half way, they were met 
by a party of fifteen pro-slavery ruffians. Burns and Clark 
were with them, and they trotted off in advance of the crowd, 
and overtook Mr. Barber and his party, and commenced 
firing on them with their revolvers. T. W. Barber was 
killed ; his brother’s horse was also wounded and died that 
evening; fortunately he and Mr. Pierson made their escape. 
The Barbers were from Preble County, Ohio. Mr. Pierson 
was from Huntingdon County, Indiana. 

These men went out from Gen. Richardson’s pro-slavery 
camp at Lecompton in company with Judge Cato, of the Su 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


77 


preme Court, Judge Wood of the Police Court of Douglas 
County, and others, to see Gov. Shannon at Wakarusa, all 
armed to the teeth. 

Under such high-handed outrages, is it any wonder that 
Gov. Shannon had become disgusted with the pro-slavery 
mob, and, like Reeder, determined, if possible, to shake them olf ? 
Thus the effort of Jefferson Davis Pierce to drive out the Free 
State settlers in Kansas, by calling in the pro-slavery border 
ruffians of Missouri, under the name of Kansas Militia, re¬ 
sulted in failure. Pierce intended Col. Sumner to use the 
Federal forces against the Free State Men, and in favor of 
slavery, and expected him to act on telegraphic authority 
sent to Shannon ; but this wise man refused to do so without 
direct instructions from the War Department, which did not 
arrive in time. 

Pierce’s message of the 4th of March, 1850, endorsing all 
the pro-slavery Kansas outrages, was the most untruthful pub¬ 
lic document ever issued. ‘Simultaneous with its issue at 
Washington, the Free State Legislature of Kansas assembled 
at Topeka. Robinson, as Governor, issued a message review¬ 
ing past troubles. Notwithstanding they expected to be ar¬ 
rested for treason, 22 Representatives and 11 Senators were 
present. Although the free State men at this time controlled 
four-fifths of the entire population, and the Organic Act pro¬ 
vided that the Legislature shall he chosen from the residents of 
the Territory, and that those who vote for them shall he actual 
cit izens of the same. 

The people of the Territory had nothing to do with mak¬ 
ing the laws that Gov. Shannon and the corrupt administration 
at Washington were endeavoring to force on them. Shannon 
and Pierce were compelling submission to the tyrannical acts 
of the pro-slavery legislature, elected by fraudulent votes from 
Missouri, by threatening to arrest the Governor and members 
of the Legislature chosen by the bona fide settlers according 
to the requirement of the Organic Act of the Territory. 

The legislature of Kansas assembled at Topeka on the 8th 
of March, 1859, and elected A. H. Reeder and James H. Lane 


78 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


United States Senators. All of these individuals expected to 
be arrested for treason, but were determined to make no re- 
^istence to the Federal officers. 

Gov. Shannon at this time was boarding with Clark, the 
Indian agent, who had murdered Barber, the free State man, 
on the 6th of December, 1855. 

Under Shannon’s instructions, United States Marshal Don¬ 
aldson and Sheriff Jones, with a very large force of border 
ruffians, accompanied by artillery, made an assault on the 
town of Lawrence. The United States forces were not per¬ 
mitted to move from their quarters, or take any part in the 
contest. Marshal Donaldson first entered the place with a 
posse, and arrested a number of persons for treason, and 
seized all the arms he could find. The inhabitants made no 
resistance to the United States officers. He then went through 
the mockery of disbanding his forces ; after which they were 
immediately led on by Sheriff Jones ; artillery was hauled 
up, and they opened with cannon on the Free State Hotel. 
This building was burned ; also the printing office of the 
Herald of .Freedom, and other dwellings, were entirely de¬ 
stroyed by the torch and cannon in the hands of the pro¬ 
slavery mob. The loss of life by the indiscriminate firing of 
cannon in a populous city must have been frightful. Many 
of the members of the free State Legislature were arrested j 
and Gov. Robinson was arrested at Lexington, Missouri, May 
21, 1856. 

The pro-slavery men now began to distrust Governor Shan¬ 
non, and a new plan of continuing the strife was resorted to— 
that of making raids from Missouri, by bands of from 100 to 
300 men, under different leaders, for the purpose of murder¬ 
ing and driving out the Free State Men. This was not done 
as before, under cover, but in defiance of all law. Shannon 
became unable to control the pro-slavery element, and in the 
latter part of the summer of 1856 he resigned in disgust. A 
second failure of the Administration to force slavery into 
Kansas. 

When Shannon resigned, Daniel Woodson, a Virginian, whom 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


79 


Pierce had appointed Secretary of Kansas, officiated as Gov¬ 
ernor until the arrival of Geary. The presidential election 
was near at hand ; and, at the solicitation of Buchanan, not 
only a new Governor, but a change of tactics in Kansas was 
deemed necessary to assist in the impending presidential 
struggle. Gen. Sumner, who was supposed to have sympathy 
for the free State men on account of his northern birth, was 
dismissed from command by Jeff. Davis, and Persifer P. 
Smith, a Louisiana slaveholder, appointed to take charge of 
the department of the West. In Davis’s instructions to his 
new General, he remarks that “ patriotism and humanity alike 
require that the rebellion shall be promptly crushed” Shortly 
after his arrival in the Territory, Geary, on the 12th of Sep¬ 
tember, 1856, issued a proclamation, which was read aloud at 
Leavenworth to the assembled crowd by Mr. Adams. This 
proclamation demanded that all military organizations in the 
Territory (except the Federal forces) should disband. The 
change that had been suggested by Buchanan was to sustain 
the pro-slavery party by acknowledging the validity of the 
laws passed by the bogus legislature, and sustain the pro¬ 
slavery judicials in their crusade against freedom by arrest¬ 
ing free State men. To make the matter appear fair, all mil¬ 
itary organizations had to be disbanded—border ruffians, as 
well as free State men. This was the scheme hit on by Bu¬ 
chanan— to disarm the free State men , and render them power¬ 
less for defence. 

Atchison, Reid and Titus had a border ruffian force then in 
Kansas of 2,400 men, with four pieces of artillery. The Mis¬ 
souri Platte Argus at the time said : “ Geary agreed to carry 
out what the border ruffians wanted' if they would disband , and 
with that understanding they marched out of the Territory. 
The record they left behind can only partially be given. 
They murdered Maj. Hoyt, of Lawrence, by breaking in his 
skull, and otherwise mutilating the body so as to render rec¬ 
ognition almost impossible. One hundred of them ravished a 
mother and daughter during the absence of the husband 
and father at Kansas City. About the same time Mr. Hopp, 


80 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


formerly of Rock Island. Ill., while about three miles on his 
way from Lawrence to Leavenworth, was shot and scalped, 
and left dead in the road. They broke up the Quaker Mission 
at the Shawnee Reserve, where the Friends had a school 
educating a few Indians, plundering the place, and driving off 
the horses, while the Quakers were forced to flee for their 
lives. On Washington Creek, about seven miles from Law¬ 
rence, they visited the house of Henry Hyatt, a native of 
Indiana. A young widow, a friend of the family, had accom¬ 
panied them to their new home ; and in the evening of August 
20th, while she was passing from an out-house into the dwell¬ 
ing, she was seized by a band of ruffians, who, before she 
could scream for aid, choked her tongue out of her mouth 
and tied it with a string behind her and round her neck, tell¬ 
ing her if she made the least noise she would instantly be shot. 
They then tied her hands behind her back, and removed her 
to a patch of prairie grass, about 400 yards from the house, 
and after ravishing her in turn kicked her in the sides and 
abdomen, and left her (as they supposed) to die. On their 
way out of the Territory these pro-slavery ruffians, in passing 
the house of Mr. Buffum, who was just then harnessing up his 
horse, they demanded it. He explained to them that he had 
an aged father and mother, and a sister and brother that were 
blind and dumb, all depending on him for support. “You 
see,” said he, “I also am myself a cripple.” They immediately 
ripped out an oath that he was a “damned abolitionist,” and 
shot him through the bowels. They then took his horse, leav¬ 
ing him in such a condition that he died in about one hour. 
They sacked the town of Franklin, and scalped a man while 
alive, and exhibited his skinless head to his outraged friends. 
On the Missouri, above Leavenworth, the settlers at Kick- 
apoo, Atchison and Doniphan, irrespective of party, were 
plundered of all they possessed ; even the under garments of 
women and the children’s clothes, were stripped from their 
bodies and carried off by the pro-slavery border-ruffian mob. 
Lecompton and Tecumseh, both strongholds of pro-slavery in 
Kansas, came in for a share of their lawless depredations. 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


81 . 


In the meantime a force was collected at Lexington, on the 
Missouri river. This is a town in the State of Missouri where 
emigrants going to Kansas by water have to pass. All steam¬ 
boats were compelled to stop here and submit to a search. 
If any free State persons were aboard, they were sent back ; 
if they had arms, they were taken from them. Thus no more 
free State emigrants were permitted to enter Kansas by the 
water route. Colonel Richardson, a Missourian, was also 
dispatched to the Nebraska line, with a force of 400 border 
ruffians to block up the land road, and prevent any free State 
settlers entering Kansas by that route. With all these ad¬ 
vantages in favor of the pro-slavery party, success appeared 
inevitable. 

This was the situation on the 29th of September, 1856, 
when Governor Geary brought the Federal dragoons into the 
field. Clark, the murderer of Barber, (whom Ex-Governor 
Shannon had boarded with,) Col. Titus, Reid and Atchison 
were retained by Geary as his aids. Lane, the free State 
General, made his escape with a small force, with their arms, 
into Nebraska. Up to October 14, 1856, not one pro-slavery 
man had been arrested by Geary. All kinds of charges were 
made and indictments found against free State men, who were 
arrested by U. S. Marshal Donaldson, (although they never 
resisted Federal authority,) supported by the Federal army. 

Every hope of the free State party appeared, to the outside 
• world, as crushed by the slave power wielding the Federal 
Government. Geary’s rule was such that it compelled free 
State men to flee from the Territory for their lives. The 
slave State of Texas had voted $50,000 to assist the border 
ruffians to make Kansas a slave State, and large sums were 
sent from other slave States to the leaders of the pro slavery 
bands to encourage them to persevere in aiding the Federal 
Government to murder and drive out of the common terri¬ 
tories all the settlers from the free States. 

The pro-slavery agitators in Congress were now anxious 
to lend their aid to the Federal Executive, in the shape of 
attaching to the army bill, authority to use the Federal army 

6 


82 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


to put down insurrection in Kansas ; which meant, to use it to 
butcher its free State settlers if they did not give their con¬ 
sent that slavery should be supreme in the Federal territories. 
The army bill passed the House with the above clause at* 
tached ; 80 Southern Representatives voted for it, and 21 
members from the free States—making 101 votes. The Sen* 
ate refused to pass it with that clause, by a vote of 25 to 7. 
It was struck out, and sent back to the House, and the bill 
was then passed with no proviso as to the employing of the 
army in Kansas. 

Some time in October, 1856, a train of emigrants under Mr. 
Eldridge, 250 in all, were met by Deputy Marshal Preston, 
with 700 troops and six pieces of artillery. He ordered the 
emigrants under arrest, and searched their baggage. They 
were mostly from New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon¬ 
sin and Iowa. They were all discharged by Gov. Geary on 
their arrival in Kansas, and their arms and baggage restored 
to them. 

Gov. Geary had arrived in time to witness Mr. Buffum die. 
He pledged him that he would bring his murderer to justice. 
A warrant was placed in the hands of Marshal Donaldson for 
the arrest of Ha}^s, the murderer. He was arrested and 
brought before Judge Lecompte, who released him on bail, 
Sheriff Jones becoming his surety. This aggravated Gov. 
Geary, and he immediately offered a large reward for his re¬ 
arrest. Donaldson refused to act, and swore he would resign. 
The Governor induced Col. Titus, who was one of his aids, 
to make the arrest. Titus, the most rabid of all, and the 
leader of the band of Southern thieves, was about to leave, 
with his two companies, to join Walker, in Nicaragua, and, 
for a large consideration from the Governor, he and his men, 
who had been kept as a kind of body-guard when all other 
militia was disbanded, made the arrest. Hays was this time 
brought before Judge Cato, who refused a writ of habeas 
corpus, and the criminal was sent to jail. This occurred on 
the 29th of November, and Titus left, with his two compa¬ 
nies, on the 1st of December. This act of simple justice on 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


83 


the part of the Governor completely turned the pro-slavery 
officials of Kansas against him. They sent letters to the 
heads of department requesting his removal, and a perfect 
feud was got up between him and Judge Lecompte. This 
unprincipled judicial knave had just committed twenty free 
State men for manslaughter, and sent them to prison for five 
years. Such an act of judicial outrage was never before per¬ 
petrated in the whole history of the country. Gov. Geary 
saw and felt it; his better nature revolted against it, and 
they joined issue. He removed the Lecompte trials and or¬ 
dered them before Judge Cato. 

On the 6th of January, 1857, several members of the free 
State Legislature met at Topeka. Sheriff Jones swore out, 
and Judge Cato issued the warrants, and the new Marshal, 
who was appointed to fill Donaldson’s place, (Pardee,) made the 
arrests. « 

The bogus pro-slavery Legislature met at Lecompton on 
January 15, 1857. Gov. Geary advised the Legislature to re¬ 
peal some of the obnoxious laws, and let slavery alone until a 
Constitution was adopted. Not a single officer in the Terri¬ 
tory was amenable to the people or to the Governor ; they all 
held their offices by appointment of the bogus Legislature. 

On the 17th of February, 1857, a bill was framed and passed 
by this infamous Legislature to assist Hays, and other pro¬ 
slavery murderers to give bail and escape justice. The Gov¬ 
ernor vetoed it; but the Legislature passed it over his head 
by only one dissenting vote. After it was passed, Clark, 
(whom Gov. Shannon, and Sheriff Jones had boarded with,) 
the murderer of Barber, gave himself up, and entered bail to 
appear. The Governor had also vetoed the bill providing for 
a Constitutional Convention, because it did not provide that 
the Constitution should be submitted to the people. The 
bogus Legislature passed it over his head. Geary had en¬ 
tirely lost his influence over the Legislature, and the Conven¬ 
tion that assembled to form a pro-slavery Constitution looked 
on him with distrust. 

Judge Lecompte wrote a letter to Attorney General Cush- 


84 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


ing, dated Jan. 9th, 1857, stating that he regarded Geary’s 
advent into Kansas as “ a woful curse to the Territory.” Also 
a large party of South Carolinians, who had gone to help 
make Kansas a slave State, left for home ; passing through 
Washington about, the first of the month, they remarked that 
they were “ completely disgusted with Geary and Kansas.” 

The Legislature appointed one Sherrard to fill the place of 
Sheriff Jones, resigned. He being an outlaw and a drunkard, 
the Governor refused to commission him. He secretly way¬ 
laid the Governor, and in order to get him into combat, so as 
to have an excuse to assassinate him, spit in Geary’s face. 

The Governor exerted himself to get up an indignation meet¬ 
ing at Lecompton. Sherrard attended the meeting, pistol in 
hand, and after wounding three persons was himself shot 
dead by a young man attached to the Governor’s suit. Geary, 
hearing that there was a plot to assassinate him, ordered 
out a regiment of United States infantry stationed in the 
town, and sent to Teciimseh for the dragoons who were em¬ 
ployed there to guard the prisoners, but it was found that 
all the ferry boats had been set adrift, and there was no way 
of passing over the troops. He then called out a number of 
citizens for his defence. The bogus Legislature had justified 
the act of spitting in his face. The Governor becoming sat¬ 
isfied that his life would be taken if he remained in the Ter¬ 
ritory, resigned about the middle of March, 1857. 

The officers of the United States army under Gen. Smith, 
when that Louisiana slaveholder found the Governor would 
not go all lengths to sustain slavery, also turned against him. 
In his farewell address, the Governor says : “ I have been 
refused a detachment of two companies, with the taunting 
reply that ‘The United States army is not here to protect 
you .’ A band of fifty men have been organized, ever since I 
entered the Territory, to assassinate me if I did not go en¬ 
tirely in the interest of slavery. My life was constantly in 
danger. The murders, assassinations and robberies of the 
pro-slavery border ruffians have never been told.” 

Thus ended the administration of Gov. Geary in Kansas. 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


85 


He was selected by Pierce, at Buchanan’s solicitation, to go 
into- Kansas to quiet the excitement, in order to assist in 
the presidential canvass of the fall of that year, 1856. The 
fraudulent voting, the arming of the border ruffian militia 
under the form of law, and the raids, in defiance of all law, 
of from 100 to 300 Missourians into Kansas to murder the 
free State men, all having failed, Geary went out to disband 
all the above auxiliaries, and bring the Federal forces into 
the field, to make a show of a peaceful settlement of the diffi¬ 
culties, in order that Buchanan might not be defeated. The 
election was carried by the pro-slavery party, under the ban¬ 
ner of State Rights, and slavery in the Territories to be re¬ 
jected or established by the residents themselves without any 
outside interference. Stripped of all mask, this doctrine is, 
that a State has power above the General Government; and 
slavery is above the control of any act that Congress might 
pass. In this election the democratic party became entirely 
sectional, and their ticket was elected on a platform that 
Thomas Jefferson would have spurned, and Andrew Jackson 
spit upon. 

A resolutibn was passed in the Buchanan Cincinnati Con¬ 
vention, endorsing the Administration of Pierce. This was 
for the Southern pro-slavery eye. It was excluded from the 
platform, and few of the Northern Democratic journals ever 
published it, and no one of them ever endorsed it. So much 
for the fork-tongued, cheating convention, that nominated 
Jim Buchanan, a worse traitor than Benedict Arnold. By 
this double dealing they secured for him 1,800,000 votes. Fre¬ 
mont, his opponent, received 1,275,000. In the free States 
alone, Fremont exceeded him 130,000. Add Fillmore’s, the 
Know Nothing candidate’s vote, 890,000, to Fremont’s, and it 
leaves the old traitor 325,000 votes in the minority. 

What Raynor Kenneth, of North Carolina, a Fillmore Na¬ 
tive American Orator, thought of Buchanan, may be seen in 
a speech delivered in Philadelphia, Nov. 1st, 1856. He re¬ 
marks : “ Buchanan is the representative of slavery agitation ; 
he is the representative of discord between sections; he is 


86 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


the man whom the Northern and Southern agitators have 
agreed to present as their candidate. If he be elected, at the 
end of four years more, they will spring upon you another 
question of slavery agitation. 77 

Pierce’s sectional pro-slavery administration had made more 
anti-slavery men than the lecturers and newspapers of that 
party had done for twenty-five years. Buchanan, as was ex¬ 
pected, carried all the slave States ; add to them New Jersey, 
Indiana, Illinois, and his own State, Pennsylvania, which to¬ 
gether gave him 174 electoral votes. There being no separate 
anti-slavery candidate, as heretofore, Fremont carried the 
great States of New York and Ohio, and nine other free 
States, making 113 electoral votes in all. Unlucky Fillmore, 
or the Native American candidate, carried only Maryland. 
The anti-slavery converts made by Pierce’s administration in¬ 
creased from 152,296 in 1852 to 1,275,000 in 1856. The trai¬ 
tor was about sixty-five years old when elected. 

Not only did the South claim that the Territories belonging 
to the Federal Government were all open to the introduction 
of slavery, but they desired the annexation of Cuba ; and 
Pierce, in all haste, set about to procure it, and “Solicited the 
aid of James Buchanan, then Minister to England, and J. Y. 
Mason, then Minister to France, to assist our Spanish Minis¬ 
ter, Pierre Soule, to negotiate at Madrid. In a letter to Mr. 
Soule headed, “ Department of State, Washington, August 
16th, 1854,” Secretary Marcy says : “ Sir, I am -directed by 
the President to request that you call a meeting of three 
ministers, to meet at Paris, to consult on the best measures to 
adopt in your negotiations at Madrid.” 

This meeting was held, but not at the place suggested by 
Pierce, but in Belgium and Prussia. We make a few extracts 
from the letter of reply, dated at 

“Aix La Chapelle, October 18, 1854. 

“ The undersigned, in compliance with the wish expressed 
by the President in his several confidential dispatches you 
have addressed to us respectively to that effect, have met in 
conference, first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 9th 10th and 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


87 


11th instants, and then at Aix la Chapelle, in Prussia, on the 
days next following up to the 18th of October.” 

After enumerating the immense advantage that would ac¬ 
crue from annexing, the reply goes on : 

“ Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose or possess reliable 
security as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.” 

[$120,000,000 was the price Pierce wanted to pay for Cuba.] 

If Spain should refuse to sell the island : 

“ Then the question should assume a new shape: Does Cuba 
in the possession of Spain seriously endanger our internal peace , 
and the existence of our cherished Union; if so, every law, hu¬ 
man and divine, will justify us in wresting it from Spain if we 
have the power . 

[Signed] JAMES BUCHANAN, 

J. Y. MASON, 

PIERRE SOULE,” 

That part of Pierce’s administration, to procure more slave 
territory at the hazard of a war with Spain, was only rendered 
more odious by its being notoriously known that the admin¬ 
istration was secretly encouraging the getting up of hostile 
expeditions to invade Cuba, and, to blind the public, on the 
8th of December, 1855, issued a proclamation to prevent it. 

Oen. Wm. Walker, of Scottish descent, but a native of Ten¬ 
nessee, w r as how struggling to become master of Central 
America. He had already fought the battles of Rivas, Souci, 
Virgin Bay, and Granada, but was compelled to fight a second 
battle at Rivas on the 11th of April, 1856. In this fight he 
was victorious, but with severe loss. Don Patricio Rivas was 
Walker’s President of Nicaragua. His proclamation, pre¬ 
viously issued, had been received with some favor by Guate¬ 
mala, Honduras, and San Salvador. The object of Walker’s 
first expedition to Sonora, according to his own statement, 
was to develope the resources of Lower California, and to 
effect a perfect social organization therein ; and to this he said 
it was necessary to make it independent. In his brief hour 
of presidential authority, after declaring independence of 


88 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


Mexico, his second decree was, extending the laws of the 
slave State of Louisiana over the Republic of Sonora. This 
was his record that induced the administration of Pierce to 
recognize and encourage him in his new field of operations. 
After Walker’s Minister had been recognized at Washington, 
the administration authorized a meeting to be held, on the 
23d of May, 1856, in the city of New York. Lewis Cass 
wrote a letter to be read at this meeting ; he says : “ My feel¬ 
ings and sympathies are with you in the demonstration of 
public satisfaction at the wise and just measure of the admin¬ 
istration, by which the existing Government of Nicaragua is 
recognized, and will be encouraged to go on in its good 
work.” Add to this Marcy’s threatening letter about the 
same time to Louis Molina, Charge d’ Affaires of Costa Rica. 
That Government was hostile to Walker and his adventurers, 
and Secretary Marcy gives its Minister to understand that 
such hostility was viewed as indirectly against the United 
States Government. 

The Washington Daily Union, from the 27th of December 
to the 14th of March, had accounts of six different expedi¬ 
tions on their way to join Walker. Meetings were held in 
New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Nashville, and almost every 
other Southern town of note, endorsing the action of the ad¬ 
ministration, and encouraging it and Walker to persevere in 
the good work in which they were jointly engaged. Colonel 
Titus, who, with two companies, had been sent by Florida to 
assist in driving the free State men out of Kansas, was in¬ 
duced by the administration to start with his force to the as¬ 
sistance of Walker, in Nicaragua. He left Kansas on the 1st of 
December, 1856, at the secret solicitation of the administra¬ 
tion to assist the South, under Walker, in acquiring more 
slave territory in Central America. 

This sectional administration of the Man of Sin was now 
coming to a close. In the brief time of four years it had ful¬ 
filled every prediction of the anti-slavery men of the North, 
and completely corrupted the fountains of the democratic 
element, and used the prestige of that great party to over- 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


89 


throw its long cherished principles established by Jefferson, 
Jackson and Polk. His administration was managed exclu¬ 
sively by the disciples of Calhoun; they annulled the doc¬ 
trine that Congress had power over slaver} 7 in the Territories 
by repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, by which 
they opened all the Federal territory to the introduction of 
slavery. They sent armed assassins from the slave States 
into Kansas to force slavery into that Territory, against the 
expressed will of a great majority of its actual settlers, a de¬ 
tailed account of which we have already given. They were 
plotting to acquire the island of Cuba, at the hazard of a war 
with Spain. They allied themselves with and encouraged 
Walker in his disreputable and subsequent disastrous fail¬ 
ure to extend slavery into Central America. They perverted 
justice, by influencing the Supreme Court to join in their un¬ 
holy pro-slavery crusade, and compelled Judge Taney to keep 
secret his unrighteous decision in the Dred Scott case until 
after the presidential election—he holding it in his pocket 
over six months—that their new candidate (Buchanan) might 
not be defeated by its promulgation. After the desirable ob¬ 
ject had been accomplished it was made public, March 6th, 
1857, two days after Buchanan’s inauguration. 

To provide against Buchanan’s defeat by Fremont, the ad¬ 
ministration had arranged, according to a previously required 
'pledge, to betray the United States Government into the 
hands of the ultra pro-slavery men of the Southern States. 
The proof of this can be found in the Washington corres¬ 
pondence of the New Orleans Delta, dated Sep'. 10th, 1856, 
which says : “ If Fremont is elected, Virginia, Georgia and 
South Carolina will immediately withdraw from the Union, 
before Fremont can get hold of the army and navy or purse¬ 
strings of the Government. Wise, of Virginia, is actively at 
work, and the South can rely on President Pierce in the emer¬ 
gency contemplated .” 

Buchanan now began to arrange for the presidential term 
for which he had been elected. The ultra pro-slavery men of 
the South determined to control or kill him. They expected 


90 


POISONING OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 


he would be the last President that the pro-slavery party 
could ever elect, and they were determined to have four years 
exclusive control, so as to disarm the Federal Government. 
Pierce stood ready, if Fremont had been elected, in 1856, to 
betray his country. Buchanan might be sure, but Breckin¬ 
ridge they knew to be safe. Like Butler, Gordon and Leslie, 
of Wallenstein memory, they resolved to take the life of their 
leader. Who acted the part of Capt. Devereux, in attempt¬ 
ing to assassinate Buchanan, we know not. 

THE ATTEMPT TO MURDER PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 

Presidents Harrison and Taylor had been singly assassin¬ 
ated. The first had been dispatched with such perfect suc¬ 
cess, and a period of ten years having nearly elapsed, and no 
arrests having been made, it was thought safe to apply the 
same means to destroy President Taylor. Although the first 
had twice succeeded without detection, still a repetition for 
a third time of poisoning a President during the early part of 
his term of office, and amid high political excitement, it was 
thought would be surrounded with evidence of foul play, and 
thus lead to detection. 

Therefore, to prevent suspicion and investigation, a change 
of tactics was determined upon. Instead of the President 
(as heretofore) being the only victim, it was so arranged that 
from twenty to fifty persons were to lose their lives, and 
among them President Buchanan. It would thus appear as an 
accidental occurrence. 

Every effort had in each case been made to use the Chief 
Magistrate exclusively for the slave interest , and only when 
these efforts had failed was murder used to secure victory. 
The slave interest was led to believe, by Buchanan’s political 
life, and by intimations from the old public functionary him¬ 
self, that his administration would be rigidly pro-slavery. The 
Kansas troubles were at their height. Through the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise, slavery had a chance in that 
territory, and Jefferson Davis, and Hunter, of Virginia, and 
Toombs, of Georgia, with other disciples of Calhoun, \,tere 


POISONING OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 


91 


determined to rule and direct the incoming administration. 
Every effort was resorted to for the purpose of compelling 
Buchanan to make up his Cabinet from the pro-slavery, dis¬ 
union Southern element. The old gentleman became very stiff 
in the back after his election, and began to think he was 
his own master; the country appeared to him to have a 
Northern as well as a Southern interest, and he refused to 
be controlled. 

He visited Washington in the latter part of February, and 
put up, as usual, at the National Hotel. On Sunday,, the 22d 
day of February, it became generally known that he had set 
his face strongly against the Jeff. Davis, pro-slavery rule or 
ruin party. It was given out that Lewis Cass, of Michigan, 
and Howell Cobb, of Georgia, were to have the leading po¬ 
sitions in his Cabinet. 

“ He had also promised to settle the question of the freedom 
of the territories to the satisfaction of the people of the free 
States.”— New York Eve. Post . 

“ The appointment of Cass and Cobb to the two command¬ 
ing positions in the Cabinet strikes the secessionists between 
wind and water, and is equivalent to a practical and absolute 
repudiation of the border-ruffian, Kansas, negro-agitation, 
disunion policy of Pierce.”— Neiv York Herald , Feb . 22,1857. 

The Herald of the 26th says : “ The appointments, by the 
Jefferson Davis faction, will doubtless be accepted and treated 
as a declaration of war , and as a war of extermination on one 
side or the other.” 

On the 22d, Buchanan's determination became known ; and 
on the 23d of February, 1857, (next day,) he was poisoned. The 
plot was deep, and planned with skill. Mr. Buchanan, as is 
customary with men in his station, had a table, or chairs, re¬ 
served for him and his friends. The President was known to 
be an inveterate tea-drinker ; in fact, Northern people rarely 
drink anything else in the evening. Southern men mostly 
prefer coffee. Thus, to make sure of Buchanan, and cause as 
many deaths in the North as possible, arsenic was sprinkled 
in the sugar bowls containing the tea or lump sugar, and set 


92 POISONING OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 

on the table where he was to sit. The pulverized sugar used 
for coffee setting on the table was kept free from the poison¬ 
ous drug by deep-laid strategy ; thus, not a single Southern 
man was affected. Fifty or sixty persons dined at different 
intervals at that table that evening; and as near as we can 
ascertain about thirty-eight died from the effects of the poison. 

Mr. Buchanan was poisoned, and with great difficulty pre¬ 
served his life. His physician treated him under standingly, from 
instructions given by himself as to the cause of his disease, for he 
understood well what was the matter. We make the above state¬ 
ment from the highest authority, and as to the. material facts we 
feel confident that the Ex-President, although not our author, will 
not contradict them. 

Shortly after the occurrence, the Cincinnati Commercial 
had an article headed as follows : 

“ Poisoning the President. —Mr. Buchanan, it is well known, 
has suffered terribly from the epidemic, and is by no means at 
this time in good health. A gentleman of our acquaintance, pass¬ 
ing through Washington a few days since, happened to hear con¬ 
firmation of the fact from Mr. Buchanan himself.” The Com¬ 
mercial says, “ We take the liberty of quoting the following 
from a private letter : ‘ As I was passing a gas light I saw a 
couple of gentlemen, one of whom, although I had not seen 
him for sixteen years. I almost knew to be the President. I 
stepped alongside, and a glance confirmed me ; I was not mis¬ 
taken. The old man totters; his legs are weak. A half 
stumble drew some remark from his companion which I did 
not hear. His reply was : 1 1 am not right; my health is not 
recovered; adding, in a sort of begging tone, 1 but I am getting 
better^ ” 

“ Killing the President .—When elected President, Mr. Bu 
chanan was in the highest physical condition. A few days be* 
fore the inauguration he visited the Capital, and on returning 
to Wheatland was slightly affected with an epidemic prevail¬ 
ing at the Capital at the time .”—New York Herald, March 
Uth , 1855. 


POISONING OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 


93 


“Since the appearance of the epidemic the tables of the 
National Hotel have been almost empty. But ipore remark¬ 
able than the appearance of the mysterious epidemic itself, is 
the supineness of the Washington authorities in regard to it. 
Have the proprietors of the hotel, or clerks or servants suf¬ 
fered from this disease ? If not, in what respect has their 
diet and accommodations differed from those of the guests. 
There is more in this calamity than meets the eye. It is not 
a matter to be trifled with.”— New York Post , March 18,1857. 

Those having a hand in the foul crime, in order to delude 
investigation, said the disease resulted from the water in the 
cistern, into which a number of rats that had been poisoned 
with arsenic had plunged. The Board of Health met on the 
evening of March 16th. The sewerage of the establishment 
was pointed to and observed. All the drains, it appears, were 
south, and southern winds were supposed to have an effect. 
But how, it may be asked, did a cause which existed for so 
long a time only begin to produce a fatal effect immediately 
on the arrival of President Buchanan in Washington ? The 
South Side Democrat , Petersburg, Va. ? says: “Is boasted 
modern science so completely in the dark that it cannot de¬ 
tect the difference of effect between mephitic air and arsenic ?” 

Symptoms of the attack , and Names of some of the Murdered 
Dead. —A persistent diarrhea, in some cases accompanied with 
violent vomiting, and always with a most depressing loss of 
strength and spirits in the person. Sometimes for one day 
the patients would be filled with hopes of recovery, then re¬ 
lapse back again into loss of spirits and illness. 

Mr. Lenox, of Ohio, died on his way home from Washing¬ 
ton. He was a guest at the National at the time of the oc¬ 
currence. 

Mrs. J. L. Adams, of New York city, also died from the 
effects of this disease. “ A post-mortem examination of Mrs. 
Adams revealed the fact that the stomach had been partly 
eaten away by arsenic.”—See New York Post , March 14, 1857. 

Mrs. Robert Johnston, of Newark, N. J., after an illness of 
five weeks, died. Mrs. Johnston, and daughter, and husband 


94 


POISONING OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 


had been at the National Hotel at the time. Mr. Johnston 
and the daughter were also severely afflicted, tut recovered. 
—Newark Advertiser , April liStli, 1857. 

Elliott Eskridge, Mr. Buchanan’s nephew, was believed to 
have died from the same cause. 

The following individuals were also poisoned at the time, 
but recovered : Hon. Robert B. Hall, member of Congress 
from Massachusetts ; Hon. 0. B. Matteson, of New York 
State ; Benj. F. Butler, (now Brigadier General,) of Mass.; 
John Appleton, editor of the Union , Washington, D. C. ; J. 
Glancy Jones, of Pennsylvania ; Samuel Medary, of Colum¬ 
bus, Ohio ; Wilson G. Hunt, G. Gifford, and Marshal Hillyer, 
all of the city of New York. The latter gentleman’s physi¬ 
cians detected arsenic in the contents of his stomach. 

Intimidated by the attempted assassination, Buchanan be¬ 
came more than ever the tool of the slave power. He now, 
in conversation with Southern ultras, boastingly remarked, 
that, “ in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise the South , for 
the first time in the history of our Government , had obtained its 
rights .” So wrote the correspondent of the Huntsville (Ala.) 
Democrat. 

Gov. Gear}^ explained fully to the President the true con¬ 
dition of Kansas, and offered to return, if he would furnish him 
the military required to protect him against the border ruf¬ 
fians. Clark, Calhoun and Whitfield were now in Washington, 
demanding Geary’s removal. It now became known that Me 
Lane, chief clerk of the surveyors office in Kansas, had in¬ 
tercepted, read and destroyed two bushels of letters going 
from and directed to Gov. Geaiy. The contents of some of 
the intercepted letters were communicated to the leaders 
of the pro-slavery party, and as many of these epistles bit¬ 
terly denounced them, it was a miracle that he ever came 
out of the Territory alive. 

Buchanan commenced his administration in Kansas affairs 
as though the entire territories of the United States belonged 
exclusively to the slave drivers. Lecompte was retained as 
Judge, and Whitfield, Emery, Woodson and Anson were also 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


95 


kept in office. Thus the judiciary, land officers, public sur¬ 
veyors and marshals were all of the same stripe. Robert J. 
Walker, formerly of Mississippi, was appointed Governor, 
and another desperate effort made to force slavery into Kan¬ 
sas. All the power asked for by Geary was readily promised 
to Walker. Buchanan, through his Secretary, Fred. P. Stan¬ 
ton, of Kentucky, in an address published in the Lecompton 
Union, the latter part of April, 1857, says that the “adminis¬ 
tration has recognized the authority of the territorial Legisla¬ 
ture, and the validity of the territorial laws , (one law of which 
was that rebellion against territorial law was punishable with 
death,) and has especially recognized the act providing for a Con¬ 
stitutional Convention .” 

Gov. Walker arrived in the Territory the last of May. On 
the 3d of June, in his inaugural, he remarks that “the terri¬ 
torial enactments must be obeyed, and he wishes all parties 
to take part in the elections, and hopes that the Constitution 
will be submitted to the people.” He was willing to sustain 
the pro-slavery party in enforcing obedience to the laws 
passed by the bogus territorial Legislature of 1855. He pro¬ 
claimed that he would use the United States troops to pre 
vent illegal voting at the polls ; but when told that Missou¬ 
rians were coming over to vote, he refused to send troops to 
the exposed border. He had also procured writs against forty 
or fifty persons who had been voted for to serve under the 
charter of the city of Lawrence. Old Ex-Governor Shannon 
laughed at this, but he did not understand that it was a poor 
political bone that Walker deemed necessary to throw to the 
hungry slave power. 

The Governor took the stump, and everywhere in the Ter¬ 
ritory urged on the pro-slavery party the importance of grant¬ 
ing to the actual settlers of Kansas a fair chance to vote, and 
also strongly recommended that the Constitution should be 
submitted to a direct vote of the people. Although exter¬ 
nally appearing to act for the interest of slavery, his policy 
concerning the election, and his well known liberal views 
about submitting the Constitution, when drafted by the Con- 


96 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


vention, to the approval of the people, divided the pro-slavery 
party. A great number of the rank and file sided with the 
Governor, while the leaders of the party combined against 
him. Mr, Perrin, Walker’s private Secretary, in a letter to 
the New York Times, dated Lecompton, June 3d, 1857, says : 
“ A middle party has sprung up, who will vote with the free 
State party, and there is no doubt but with this party the 
settlement of the Kansas question must eventually rest.” 

Senator Wilson, of Mass., was in Kansas in the latter part 
of May and fore part of June, 1857. He and Walker some¬ 
times spoke, one after the other, from the same platform. 

The Lecompton Constitutional Convention, elected under 
Gov. Walker, Sept. 12, 1867, refused to admit the free State 
delegates. Gov. Robinson (free State) had been tried for 
treason, August 21, by Judge Cato, who charged the jury 
strongly against him, but they brought in a verdict of Not 
Guilty. Nearly every officer appointed by Buchanan, except 
Walker and Stanton, had committed, aided and encouraged 
murder in Kansas. 

Although Walker refused to send troops to protect the 
polls on the Kansas border, the free State men were delighted 
when he threw out the fraudulent returns sent in from Johns - 
ton and Magee counties. This act of justice, so faithfully done 
by him, was bitterly censured and condemned in a letter to 
him from Buchanan. The administration was now bearing hard 
down on Walker. The New York Day Book, a pro-slavery 
sheet, demanded his removal, because he had forfeited the 
good opinion of the Democracy of the Territory. Buchanan, 
in his message of December 8th, 1857, came out against him. 
Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the Chicago Times, and Philadel¬ 
phia Press were among his defenders. Walker became dis¬ 
gusted, and resigned. His resignation was accepted by Gen. 
Cass, December 18th, 1857. 

On the day previous the bogus Legislature had agreed to 
submit the Lecompton Constitution to a vote of the people. 
Although this pro-slavery document had been in existence 
since September, no one (not even Gov. Walker) had been 
permitted to see it. 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


97 


The Kansas Legislature was composed of 13 free State men 
and 6 democrats in the Senate, and 29 free State men and 15 
Democrats in the House. 

Gov. Denver was next appointed to fill Walker’s place. The 
free State element had now become so powerful that Gen. 
Lane was making numerous arrests for illegal voting. The 
Lecompton Constitution was repudiated by several thousands 
of the popular vote. This news of defeat set hard on the 
pro-slavery party. In Congress, Keitt, of South Carolina, 
grabbed Mr. Grow, member of the House from Pennsylvania, 
by the throat. The latter knocked him down, remarking at 
the same time, that “ no negro-driver should crack his slave 
whip over him.” This occurred, Feb. 6th, 1858, and produced 
a general row in the House, which was difficult to quell. 

Buchanan, chagrined at Walker’s failure in Kansas, re¬ 
marked, after he had sent his Kansas message into Congress, 
Feb. 2d, 1858, that “he would carry Lecompton through in 
sixty days or die.” 

The free State men were not only getting strong, but bold. 
Gov. Denver issued a proclamation against arming the militia ; 
yet Gen. Lane kept on arming, and stigmatized Denver as a 
perjurer, calumniator and tyrant. This was in March, 1858. 
The object of arming the militia was, if the Lecompton Con¬ 
stitution passed Congress, to make it impossible to organize 
any Government under it. On the 27th of March, 1858, per¬ 
sons pretending to be officers of the United States army, in 
search of deserters, went in the dead of night to the house of 
Isaac Denton, on the Osage river. Mr. Denton rose from his 
bed and let the pro-slavery ruffians in, when he was imme¬ 
diately shot dead. Mr. Hedric and Mr. Davis, his neighbors, 
were also on the same night murdered in the same manner. 

On the 30th of the same month a Constitutional Conven¬ 
tion was sitting at Leavenworth. The Convention drew up a 
remonstrance addressed to the President, Congress, and the 
Legislatures of the different States. This instrument set 
forth, 1st, that the Lecompton Constitution was not the act of 
the people of Kansas ; 2d, that it had been condemned by 


98 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


them. It was signed by Winchell, Thacher, Emery, Walden 
and Foster. Ex-Gov. Walker, after reading this remonstrance, 
in a letter to S. S. Cox, said, “ If the Lecompton bill now 
pending in Congress pass, the odious Lecompton Constitution, 
born in fraud, and baptized in forgery and perjury, will be 
defeated by an overwhelming vote by the people of Kansas.” 
Secretary Stanton, in a letter about the same date, said : “The 
Constitution has once been rejected by the people of Kansas, 
and why does Congress wish to send it back again to be re¬ 
pudiated.” 

Persifer F. Smith, the pro-slavery commander sent out by 
Jeff. Davis, under Pierce’s administration, to supersede Gen. 
Sumner, died at Leavenworth, May 16,1858. Only three days 
after, as though hell had been reinforced, Capt. Hamilton, a Mis¬ 
sourian, with 25 armed ruffians, IT of whom were from Mis¬ 
souri and 8 from Kansas, captured 11 free State men in the 
southern part of Kansas, and at a ravine near Fort Hamilton, 
placed them in a row standing, when he ordered his men to 
take aim and fire. They all fell at the first discharge ; five were 
* instantly killed, and five severely wounded. The murderers 
then went up and began to rifle their pockets. Finding one 
still unhurt, the Captain placed his pistol to his ear and put 
the ball through his head. One of the men, who had been 
slightly wounded, was overlooked in their great haste to 
escape; he worked his way back to the post and told the sad 
news. Many of these ruffians were personally acquainted 
with their victims, and murdered them because they were 
free State men. Campbell, Colpetzer, Ross, Stilman and Rob¬ 
inson, were some of the dead. Reed, a baptist preacher, Hall 
and Hargraves, (father and son,) were among the severely 
wounded. The names of the others we could not procure. 

To prevent the repetition of these outrages, the free State 
party encouraged Capt. Montgomery to organize a sufficient 
force, with which he afterwards frequently made excursions 
into Missouri. In a little speech, this free State Captain said, 
“ he made no war on peaceable citizens, be they pro-slavery or 
free State, but only on those who are devastating Kansas, and 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


99 


murdering peaceful citizens ; neither did he allow any of his 
men to insult a woman.” 

Gov. Denver accomplished very little during his term of 
office. He made a treaty of peace similar to that of Shannon, 
but the pro-slavery party broke it by commencing indiscrim¬ 
inately to murder the people of Fort Scott. He resigned Sept. 
21, 1858. 

Buchanan, determined to make Kansas a slave State, al¬ 
though so often defeated, was resolved to make one more 
effort. On the 12th of November, 1858, he appointed Samuel 
Medary, formerly Editor of the Ohio Statesman, and more 
recently Ex-Governor of Minnesota Territory. His instruc¬ 
tions were to prevent Kansas from sending a Constitution 
into Congress that winter, if possible. 

A few persons said, and a great many believed, that the 
pro-slavery murderer, Capt. Hamilton, was instructed from 
Washington to commit his depredations in order that a plau¬ 
sible excuse could be had for making another military effort 
to subdue the free State men. One thing is certain, Medary 
had scarcely got warm in his seat when Hamilton charged 
the people of southern Kansas with stealing negroes. Mr. 
Bailey, and several other free State men, were murdered in 
December, and Medary made a requisition on the President 
for military aid. 

Medary endeavored to do away with the expressive names 
of pro-slavery and free State men, and introduce the good old 
titles of Democrats and Republicans. He thought the name 
of Democrat would cover a multitude of sins, and perhaps it 
might change him from being the tool of a corrupt adminis¬ 
tration to being the choice of the people of Kansas. He be- 
came a candidate for Governor, in opposition to Charles Rob¬ 
inson, at the election of December 6, 1859. Hon. Abraham 
Lincoln was in Kansas during the canvass. It was an ani¬ 
mated one. Medary was backed up by the administration. 
He had as his supporters Russell’s and Waddell’s teamsters, 
the Indian agents, and hangers on generally. Every effort 
was made to secure Democratic success, but it failed. Rob- 


100 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


inson was elected Governor by about 3,000 majority, and the 
entire Republican ticket by about the same vote. The Gov¬ 
ernor and members of Congress were the same that were 
elected under the Topeka Constitution of 1855 ; and Topeka, 
as then, now became the State Capital. 

Thus bribery, forgery, perjury, arson and murder, under 
various pretenses, with the assistance of two corrupt admin¬ 
istrations of the Federal Government, backed up by the slave 
power, seducing the weak and striking down the strong, leav¬ 
ing no effort untried, even unto fire and blood, to force sla¬ 
very into Kansas, failed. The God of battles saw these mur¬ 
ders and secret assassinations; the groans of the victims 
ascended like incense from liberty’s altar, and he swore by 
himself that Kansas should be free. 

Although Medary was overwhelmingly defeated by the 
people of Kansas in the December election, still, by instruc¬ 
tions from Buchanan, he continued to stay in the Territory. 
The people of Kansas had chosen a Governor ; but Medary 
was left by Buchanan to keep up the strife, and guard and 
protect, with the fidelity of a watch-dog, the institution of 
slavery. In February, 1860, the Kansas Legislature passed a 
bill prohibiting slavery in Kansas. Medary vetoed it, and on 
the 29th of the same month the same Legislature passed it 
over his veto. He had previously, by the aid of the military, 
cleaned out all the settlers on the Indian national lands south 
of Fort Scott. This was done at the commencement of winter, 
and hundreds of them perished from hunger and cold. Be¬ 
tween the action of the Federal Government and its ally, 
Capt. Hamilton, the deaths from cold, hunger and assassina¬ 
tion, in this part of Kansas, were frightful to contemplate. 

Capt. Montgomery, as we have before stated, organized a 
company for the defence of the free State settlers in south¬ 
western Kansas. Frequent charges had previously been made 
against him, and in 1859 he gave himself up to Gov. Medary 
to be tried, but no grand jury could be found in Kansas that 
would indict him, He finally became the terror of the slave¬ 
holders and border ruffians of southwestern Missouri. In 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


101 


November, 1860, placards were extensively posted and circu¬ 
lated in that region setting forth that Capt. Montgomery, 
with a band of abolitionists, were setting free and running off 
all the slaves in the border counties. This was untrue ; but 
it was the last desperate effort of a corrupt administration to 
revive and rally the pro-slavery element for another struggle 
to force slavery into Kansas. 

At this time the entire slave interest in Missouri, from Gov. 
Stewart down, became alarmed. Stewart called out a large 
force of militia, and sent them to the border. The admin¬ 
istration at Washington sent out Gen. Harney to assist Gov. 
Medary. Harney wanted to take the matter out of the Gov¬ 
ernor’s hands, by declaring martial law ; but Medary insisted 
that the Government troops should only be used to assist the 
U. S. Marshal to make arrests. Harney’s object in declaring 
martial law was, that he could then immediately court-martial 
and shoot Montgomery and his party when they were cap¬ 
tured. 

It was now rumored that Montgomery was at Mound City 
with three hundred well armed men. Harney, fearing to 
make an attack on the city alone, requested the aid of Gen. 
Frost. With their united strength they advanced ; but when 
they arrived they failed to find Montgomery. From this time 
forward all kinds of exaggerated stories and pro-slavery lies 
were freely circulated : Montgomery was here to-day com¬ 
mitting depredations ; to morrow he was somewhere else 
slaughtering the masters and stealing their slaves. 

John Brown, who had suffered so much from the pro-slavery 
border ruffians of Missouri, understanding well the nature of 
the Kansas contest, concluded about this time to make a flank 
movement, and change his base from the Osage country of 
that Territory to Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. As a great num¬ 
ber of Virginians, including the son of Ex-Gov. Johnston, had 
come to Kansas to fight him and his cause, he thought it 
courtesy to return the compliment. Arrangements having 
been made to Brown’s satisfaction, he and his company en¬ 
tered Maryland by way of Chambersburg, Pa,, and took up 


102 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


their quarters in Washington county, at a house previously 
rented, about five miles from Harper’s Ferry. The party 
comprised only 20 men besides Brown, the commander-in¬ 
chief j five of them were negroes. On the night of the 16th 
of October, 1859, these men forcibly seized the U. S. arsenal 
at Harper’s Ferry, and held it from half past ten o’clock on 
Sunday night until about ten o’clock on Tuesday morning. 
The assault to re-capture the arsenal was made by the United 
States Marines, led on by Col. Harris, Lieut. Green, and Maj. 
Russell. Fifteen of Brown’s men were killed, three wounded, 
and five taken prisoners. Six citizens were killed. 

This was not a slave insurrection, but a continuation of the 
Kansas struggle. It was the first blow that the free State 
men struck at their old enemy outside of that Territory. 
Brown understood well the nature of the hideous monster, 
and thought he was doing God’s service to beard him in his 
den. Physically, the magnitude of the undertaking was too 
great for the small means under Brown’s command ; but its 
tragical termination, and the bravery of his death, gave to lib¬ 
erty another martyr, and to freedom a new impulse. Although 
his body lies mouldering in the ground, his soul is in the 
Union army triumphantly marching on. 

Through two presidential terms the slave power kept up 
the Kansas slavery agitation. Through the repeal of the Mis¬ 
souri Compromise, it was opened by Pierce’s administration, 
and continued with an energy worthy of a better cause until 
his term of office expired. It was then passed over to Bu¬ 
chanan, as the life and soul of the Democratic party, and he 
revived, extended, and encouraged the agitation for two years 
in Congress under the names of Lecompton, and anti-Le- 
compton Democrats, then Crittenden Compromise, Mont- 
gomery-Crittenden Compromise, and then again the English 
bill. Thus, under the guidance of the slave power, and the 
treason of Pierce and Buchanan, the Democratic party be¬ 
came corrupted, demoralized, divided and ruined. 

During Buchanan’s entire term of office he refused to ac¬ 
quiesce in the settlement of the Kansas question. He pros- 


SLAVERY OUTRAGES IN KANSAS. 


103 


tituted the Federal Government by rewarding with office those who 
supported his slave policy by voting for the Lecompton Constitution. 
Joseph Miller, of Ohio, a weak and wavering Democrat, was reward¬ 
ed for his vote in favor of Lecompton with a judgeship in Nebraska; 
a half dozen more were similarly rewarded. But Douglas, Broderic,* 
Walker, Stanton and Forney, whom he could not bribe, were de¬ 
nounced as traitors to the Democratic party. Gov. Medary, now 
discovering that Buchanan was determined not to permit the Kan¬ 
sas question to be settled during his administration, resigned, De¬ 
cember 20, I860. As soon as the Southern States began to withdraw 
from the Union, Buchanan signed the bill, admitting Kansas. 

It was determined that this question should be the final 
excuse for separation and disunion. The war had commenced 
in Kansas, and was five years in full blast before John Brown 
made his raid on Harper’s Ferry, and was in its seventh year 
before President Lincoln took his seat. The faithful historian, 
who seeks truth, will find slavery to have been the cause, 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise an accessory before 
the fact, and driving freedom out of Kansas at the point of 
the bayonet, the exact time when the rebellion commenced. 


* Backed up and encouraged by the administration at Washington, a combi¬ 
nation of pro-slavery Democrats was formed in California to take the life of 
Senator Broderic. He boldly denounced the Lecompton fraud, and Senator 
Gwin, unable to cope with him in argument, gave Broderic to understand that 
he was anxious to fight him a duel. Broderic refused to fight until after the 
election. Another pro-slavery dog, by the name of Perley, also challenged 
him to fight. Broderic refused. Justice Terry, a Lecompton Democrat, an 
experienced duelist and an excellent shot, then challenged him. Broderic had 
previously taken this man out of the hands of the Vigilence Committee, and 
thus saved his life. He now saw there was a price set upon his head, and 
again declined; but Terry pressed the matter so hard that Broderic at last, 
fearing private assassination, accepted the challenge. The duel was fought 
September 13, 1859. Broderic fell at the first fire, pierced through the lungs, 
and died on the lGth. Calhoun Benner and Tom Hays were Terry’s seconds, 
and J. H. McKibbon seconded Senator Broderic. Buchanan dreaded this 
powerful opponent, and the slave holders also dreaded him, and were deter¬ 
mined to have his life. Brought up in the city of New York, andunaccostomed 
to the use of fire arms, he had no chance with the individual who had been 
pitched upon to take his life. His death was a public, political murder, for the 
benefit of pro-slavery principles and pro-slavery men. 



104 


DYING DAYS OP DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


Jeff. Davis, as Secretary of War under Pierce, ordered Gen. 
Smith to bring the Federal forces into the field to drive free¬ 
dom out of Kansas. This was in 1856 ; and on the 9th of 
February, 1861, he is appointed commander-in-chief of the 
slaveholder’s rebellion at Montgomery, Alabama. Ceasing to 
control, he determines to destroy the Federal Government. 

THE SLAVEHOLDERS BECOME SAVAGES, AND COMMENCE WAR 
AGAINST CIVILIZATION. 

South Carolina, on the 20th of December, 1860, takes the 
lead. The rebel chiefs, decorated in all the panoply of war, 
now assembled at Charleston, and joined in a war dance, 
stamping, yelling, and brandishing their scalping-knives and 
tomahawks, threatening death and universal slaughter against 
the tribes of the North. These demonstrations were looked 
upon by the South Carolina tribe as immense, and full of 
promise for the future. Great care was taken to send 
hourly reports, of the most exciting nature, from Camp 
Charleston, to all the other slaveholding tribes. Thus, in 
one of these reports, Chief Ruffian was represented as hav¬ 
ing made a great speech, in which he said : “ The inde¬ 

pendence of the Southern tribes can only be secured by the 
tribe of South Carolina talcing the lead.” This speech, which 
was made at Columbia, was represented as causing a furore of 
excitement among the braves. 

Another Bull. —“ Virginia and other slaveholding States may 
as well at once understand their position with the South Car¬ 
olina tribe.” 

Still Another. —•“ The South Carolina tribe is decidedly in 
earnest. There is but one voice among them, and that is for 
war. They have done counseling—now they act.” 

These fire-brands of revolution were swiftly carried in 
every direction by the savages, and served to excite the dif¬ 
ferent tribes to join in the foul plot. As was intended, the 
excitement by this means soon reached the neighboring 
tribes. Mississippi was the first to show sympathy ; and on 
the 9th day of January, 1861, they agreed to send warriors to 


DYING DAYS OP DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


105 


Charleston. South Carolina has 703,708 souls, including 402,406 
slaves. Mississippi has 791,305 souls, including 436,631 slaves. 

On the 11th of the same month the tribe of Florida, num¬ 
bering 140,425 souls, holding 61,745 slaves; also on the 11th, 
the tribe of Alabama, numbering 964,201 souls, including 
435,080 slaves, both of these tribes sent warriors to the camp 
at Charleston. And on the 20 th of January the great and 
powerful tribe of Georgia, numbering 1,057,286 souls, including 
462,198 slaves, also joined the war party, and sent warriors to 
the great camp at Charleston. On the 26th of January the 
tribe of Louisiana, numbering 708,002 souls, including 331,726 
slaves, joined the others by sending warriors to Camp Charles¬ 
ton. On the 1st day of February, the tribe from the Rio 
Grande, Texas, numbering 604,215 souls, including 182,566 
slaves, sent warriors, and joined the other tribes in the fortunes 
of war. 

Seven tribes had now banded together, and had a great 
number of warriors congregated at Camp Charleston. The 
other tribes appeared to be holding off. 

It was not until after the seven tribes had united, that a 
chief was selected. On the 9th of February, 1861, Davis 
was, by the consent of the other chiefs at Montgomery, Ala¬ 
bama, declared to be the great chief, around whom were to 
be gathered all the slaveholding tribes. (Capital moved to 
Richmond, Va., May 20th, 1861.) 

Thus, South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Florida , 
Louisiana and Texas , make seven tribes. Combined they 
number 4,968,994 souls, and hold 2,312,028 slaves. 

It was their determination so to arrange matters, that when 
hostilities commenced other tribes would be brought in by 
the excitement. And for the purpose of getting up the war 
fever, Wise started for the James River, and from there he 
went to the Blue Ridge Country, every where urging the 
great men of the tribe to prepare for war. In this way all 
the eastern part of the country, inhabited principally by that 
portion of the Virginia tribe that held slaves, was worked into 
excitement. In the valleys and on the hills the blue smoke 


106 


DYING DAYS OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


by day, and the red lights by night, could everywhere be seen; while 
Wise went from camp to camp, counseling the braves and training 
them for the conflict. 

Among the tribes living east of the Blue Ridge, all peaceful pursuits 
were abandoned by day, and the horrors of night were increased by 
the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the yell of 
the savage—all equally ravenous and thirsting for blood. 

Thus Wise, with his eloquence, had made all things ready, and only 
one thing was needed, and that was some one to lead. Chief Ruffian, 
a very old man, was of the Virginia tribe, and upon his head fell the 
honors of commencing the work of death. And on the morning of 
the Ylth of April, 1861 , at precisely 4| o'clock, standing near the grave 
of Oceola, in Fort Moultrie, he fired the first gun at Sumter. (This 
man, Edmond Ruffian, aged over 74 years, on the 17th of June, 
1865, committed suicide, at the residence of his son, 27 miles from 
Danville Va., by placing a loaded musket to his mouth, and blowing 
off the top of his head.) This fort, although strong, contained only 
a force of one hundred and nine men; while the attacking party 
numbered above ten thousand. Thirty-three hours the little gar¬ 
rison held out against overwhelming numbers, when they were com¬ 
pelled, the fort being on fire, to surrender, and haul down the starry 
flag. After which was run up the Palmetto flag of South Carolina. 

Now the management in putting forward Ruffian was in ac¬ 
cordance with the programme laid down. Only five days af¬ 
ter he commenced the attack on Fort Sumter, on the 17th of 
April, the tribe of Virginia joined the ignominious seven. 
This was a great acquisition, a very powerful tribe, numbering 
1,596,079 souls, and holding 490,887 slaves; and located near 
and joining lands with some of the great Northern tribes, its 
acquisition was heralded with delight by the chiefs. 

On the 6th of may, the tribe known as Arkansas, numbering 
435.427 souls, including 111,104 slaves; and also on the 6th 
of the same month, the tribe from the Cumberland, known as 
Tennessee, numbering 1,109,847 souls, including 275,784 slaves; 
and on the 20th of May, the tribe from Pamlico Sound, known 
as North Carolina, numbering 992,667 souls, including 331,081 
slaves, joined the others. 

This made eleven tribes that had embarked in the war, 



DYING DAYS OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


107 


numbering in all, men, women and children, 9,103,014 souls. 
The slaves held by these eleven tribes number 3,521,884. 
There remains four tribes, holding slaves, that have refrained, 
in a legislative capacity, from joining the war party. Although 
thousands and thousands of their braves, and many of their 
chiefs have gone on their own account, and are now fighting in 
the army of the South, yet the tribes themselves, although 
many of their members sympathize, have never yet joined the 
rebellion in force. Their names are Maryland, numbering 
687,034 souls, and holding only 87,188 slaves. Missouri, num¬ 
bering 1,182,317 souls, and holding only 114,965 slaves. Ken¬ 
tucky, numbering 1,155,713 souls, and holding 225,490 slaves. 
The little tribe of Delaware, numbering 112,218 souls, and 
holding only 1,798 slaves. 

Thus, these four tribes are not in actual hostility against 
the North; yet the great majority of their leading men 
have very decided sympathies with the South. The four 
tribes number 3,137,282 souls, including 429,441 slaves. 

The condition of the country, long before President Lincoln 
came to Washington, was deplorable. Not only had seven 
States passed the ordinance of secession, and organized a Con¬ 
federacy, but also many, or nearly all the forts in the slave 
States, had been seized on the 2d of January, 1861. Forts Pu¬ 
laski and Jackson, in Savannah Harbor, Georgia, were taken 
possession of by the tribe in that State ; the former mounting 
150 guns, and cost the General Government $923,000 ; the 
latter mounting 14 guns, and cost $80,000. Also the Mount 
Yernon Arsenal in Alabama, with 20,000 stand of arms. 

On January 4th, the next day, Fort Morgan in Mobile har¬ 
bor, was seized by the Alabama tribe. It cost the General 
Government $1,212,000, and mounts 132 guns ; also the Arse¬ 
nal at Mobile, containing 800 stand of arms, and 1,500 barrels 
of powder, 300,000 rounds of cartridges. 

On the 9th of the same month the steamer Star of the West, while 
on her way to Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, with provisions for 
the starving garrison, was fired into, two shots taking effect. 

On the 11th of January, Forts St. Phillips and Jackson, on 


108 


DYING DAYS OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


the Mississippi, and Fort Pike, on Lake Ponchartrain, and the 
United States Arsenal at Baton Rougue, were all taken by the 
Louisiana tribe. 

On January 13th, Fort Barrancas, and the United States 
Navy Yard at Pensacola, were seized by the Florida tribe; 
and the United States Arsenal at Augusta, Geo., was seized 
by the tribe of Georgia on the 24th of January ; and on the 
31st of the same month, the Mint belonging to the United 
States, at New Orleans, was seized, with $389,000 of Govern¬ 
ment money, and $122,000 in the Sub Treasury. 

The Peace Convention now commenced its sittings at 
Washington. How humiliating it is to read how the South 
spurned every offer to prevent the effusion of blood. 

The Illinois and Kentucky Legislatures had previously 
recommended Congress to call a Convention to change the 
Constitution of the United States, so as to give additional 
guarantees to slavery. In the excitement that was raging, 
Virginia sent invitations to all the States, inviting them to 
send delegates to a Convention, to be held in Washington, 
D. C., on the 4th of February, 1861. Only twenty States re¬ 
sponded ; seven slave—Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, Mary¬ 
land, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee ; thirteen free 
—New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. 

This Convention (wholly unknown to the Constitution) as¬ 
sembled about one month after the traitors at Charleston 
had fired on the ship Star of the West, which was taking pro¬ 
vision to the starving garrison at Fort Sumter. It was 
without legal form, and got up by traitors to gain time, and 
keep down the rising ire of the North. Many well-meaning 
men of the free States went to see what additional conces¬ 
sions were required to appease the wrath of the slave-drivers. 
These self-constituted settlers of our national difficulties, 
although without authority, offered to do any and everything 
for peace. Many of them, with tears in their eyes, went od 
bended knees, and implored the traitors to desist. They 


DYING DAYS OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


109 


even went so far as to elect Ex-President John Tyler, the 
accessory to President Harrison’s assassination, President of 
the Convention. 

The Committee on Propositions brought in, and were ready 
to give their consent to add a new article to the Federal Con¬ 
stitution, to be composed of seven sections, to be called Ar¬ 
ticle 13th. 

The first section provided for a division of all the existing 
territory by the line of 36 deg. 30 min. 

The second section was a pledge never to acquire any more, 
except with the concurrence of a majority of all the Senators 
of the slave States and all the Senators of the free States. 

The third section prohibited Congress from interfering 
with slavery within any State, or in the District of Columbia, 
without the consent of Maryland ; and the slaveholders there¬ 
in also prohibited any interference with slavery in the Terri¬ 
tories, and the slave trade between the slave States. 

The fourth section guaranteed that the Fugitive Slave Act 
should everywhere be respected. 

Fifth—The interests of Virginia required that the foreign 
slave trade should be prohibited. This section prohibited it. 

The sixth section bound the United States to pay for all 
fugitive slaves rescued by violence. 

Mr. Chase made an able speech before the Convention. 
He said : “ Mr. President, let us not rush headlong into that 
unfathomable gulf. Let us not attempt this unutterable woe. 
We offer you a plain and honorable mode of adjusting all dif¬ 
ferences. It is a mode which, we believe, will receive the 
sanction of the people. We pledge ourselves here that we 
will do all in our power to obtain their sanction for it. Is it 
too much to ask you, gentlemen of the South, to meet us on 
this honorable and practicable ground ? Will you not, at 
least, concede this to the country ?” 

On the conclusion of these remarks, the question was taken 
upon the proposed amendment to the Constitution, and it was 
rejected by the following vote, every slave State voting 
against it: 


110 


DYING DAYS OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


Ayes—Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massa¬ 
chusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont—9. 

Noes—Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jer¬ 
sey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ten¬ 
nessee, Virginia—11. The Ohio delegation voted as in¬ 
structed by its Legislature. 

On February 8th, the United States Arsenal at Little Rock, 
with 9,000 stand of Arms and 40 cannon, including Bragg’s 
Battery, was seized by the Arkansas tribe. 

February 16th, the Southern traitor, General Twiggs, 
having command of our main army on the frontiers of Texas, 
surrendered his entire force, his men being made prisoners of 
war, and all their arms, munitions and supplies were turned 
over to the enemy. 

All this was done while Buchanan and his Cabinet were do¬ 
ing all they could to destroy and disable the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment. Tousey, his Secretary of the Navy, under different 
pretentions, had dispersed the fleet, sending some to cruise 
around the coasts of China and Japan ; some to the Medi¬ 
terranean, and some to the West Indies, so they might rot 
by the action of the elements in the tropical seas. Others 
were sent to the coast of Africa, under the pretense of cap¬ 
turing slaves, until scarcely a United States war vessel could 
be seen in the Federal waters. 

Floyd, his Secretary of War, was equally industrious, transferring 
from the free States all the available war material to the arsenals and 
forts located in the slave States. , 115,000 improved muskets and rifles 
were removed from the Springfield and Waterville arsenals to the 
South. He also removed that portion of the Federal army located on 
and near the seaboard (where it was easy of access) far away—some to 
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, California, and other frontier 
stations, from which it would require a year to bring them back. 
Even on the 15th of November Fortress Monroe in Virginia, was only 
garrisoned by eight companies of artillery ; the valuable arsenal at 
Fayetteville, North Carolina, by one company: Fort Moultrie, 
in Charleston harbor, by two companies, (only eighty men); Key 
West fortifications by one company; Barrancas Barracks, Pensa- 


DYING DAYS OP DEMOCRATIC RULE. 


Ill 


cola, by one company ; the richly stored arsenal at Baton 
Rouge, Louisiana, by one company ; while the New Orleans 
Mint, and the valuable Custom-houses in New Orleans, 
Charleston, Mobile and Savannah, were totally without guard. 
Norfolk Navy-yard, and Pensacola Navy-vard, both having 
millions of property, were only guarded by one hundred and 
twenty marines. 

The first demand made of the President by the rebels, after 
the plot was developed, was, that no reinforcements should 
be sent to Southern fortresses. General Scott plead with 
Buchanan to throw a strong force into Fort Moultrie, as had 
been done in 1832 ; but Buchanan, instead of doing so, as¬ 
sured the rebels that none would be sent. 

Thus the Government, betrayed, stood with both arms par¬ 
alyzed ; and while in this condition seven Stales, headed by 
South Carolina, one by one tore themselves away, taking 
seven forts, four arsenals, one Navj^-yard, and the Mint be¬ 
longing to the United States at New Orleans, with five hun¬ 
dred and eleven thousand dollars. The value of the property 
stolen, up to this time, is set down at twenty-seven millions of 
dollars ; add to this the eight millions of Indian Trust Bonds 
stolen by Floyd, and it makes thirty-five millions of dollars. 

Thus, before President Lincoln was within a thousand miles 
of the Capital, we find a Democratic President and Yice 
President, and leading Cabinet officers, all rotten with treason 
and besmeared with crime, a Government betrayed, robbed, 
bound hand and foot, bleeding a,nd festering and festering 
and bleeding at every wound; with a bastard institution 
holding its councils and head-quarters at Montgomery, Ala¬ 
bama, with Davis as leader, martialing its thousands of armed 
foes, all eager and bent on destroying the beneficent Govern¬ 
ment they had so foully betrayed. 

From there we again look back to Washington, only for a 
change. There we see Buchanan, the Chief Magistrate, an 
imbecile traitor, tottering away in disgrace, with scarcely 
courage enough to look back on the awful tragedy which 
his foul treachery, sympathy or imbecility, had shared in 


112 DYING DAYS OP DEMOCRATIC RULE. 

producing. Nearly all his cabinet officers had fled, to escape 
the punishment due their crimes. But Buchanan remained 
longest, and on the last days of his power pleasingly con¬ 
templated, with a grim-like smile which grew to a laugh, the 
agonizing sufferings of a wrecked and ruined country : re¬ 
marking as he retired, “ As G-eorge Washington was the first, 
James Buchanan will be the last President of the United 
States.” 

The presidential election of 1860 found the political ele¬ 
ments in a very unsettled condition. Buchanan had given a 
secret pledge to the South before he received his nomination 
at Cincinnati (and he kept it) that the Kansas war should not 
be settled during his administration. The Democratic party 
had become demoralized. From the exalted position of de¬ 
fending human freedom and popular government, it became 
the reviler of liberty and deadly enemy of free institutions. 
It set aside the rights of man to make room for Calhoun’s 
rights of the States. The popular will was to be controlled 
by bribery and fraud, and was only to be tolerated when it 
served slavery and placed Democrats in office. Pro-slavery , 
disunion, anti-abolition, and a death grip on the spoils, were the 
substitutes offered by Pierce and Buchanan for the Democrat¬ 
ic principles established by Jefferson and Jackson. 

At Chicago, in May, 1860, Lincoln and Hamlin received the 
nomination of the Republican party for the offices of Presi¬ 
dent and Vice President of the United States for the ensuing 
four years. The 3d article in the platform adopted, contains 
the following : “We hold in abhorrence all schemes for dis¬ 
union, come from whatever source they may.” Another ar¬ 
ticle stipulated that Kansas should of right be immediately 
adm-itted as a State under the Constitution, recently formed 
and adopted by her people, and accepted by the House of 
Representatives. 

At Baltimore, June 22, 1860, Stephen A. Douglas and Her- 
schell V. Johnston were nominated for the offices of Presi¬ 
dent and Vice President by the Democratic party. On the 
next day, June 23, the disunion wing of that party nomina¬ 
ted John C. Breckinridge and Joseph Lane for the same 
positions. This wing of the party proclaimed slavery na¬ 
tional, and freedom only sectional. 

In May, 1860, John Bell and Edward Everett were nomi¬ 
nated for President and Vice President by the tail of the old 
Whig party, which all supposed to have died in 1852. They 
went in for the Constitution of the country, the Union of the 
States, and the enforcement of the laws. 


PLOT TO ASSASSIN ATE PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 113 

Lincoln and Hamlin carried 17 States—180 electoral votes. 
Breckinridge and Lane carried 11 slave States—72 electoral 
votes. Bell and Everett carried 3 States—39 electoral votes. 
Douglas and Johnston carried Missouri and part of New Jer¬ 
sey—12 electoral votes. 

Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin clipped both the 
Douglas and Breckinridge wings of the Democratic party, 
and cut off the tail of Bell and Everett. Lincoln had a clear 
majority of 57 electoral votes over all opposition. This was 
a glorious triumph for the Union, a day of rejoicing for lib¬ 
erty, and a proud day for freedom—a day of rescue and de¬ 
liverance of the General Government from treason and trai¬ 
tors—a day that shall add new lustre to the American name, 
and create joy in the hearts of millions yet unborn. 

THE PLOT TO ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

Twenty men had been hired in Baltimore to assassinate the 
President elect on his way to Washington. The leader of 
this band was an Italian refugee, a barber well known in Bal¬ 
timore. Their plan was as follows: When Mr. Lincoln ar¬ 
rived in that city, the assassins were to mix with the crowd, 
and get as near his person as possible, and shoot at him with 
their pistols. If he was in a carriage, hand grenades had 
been prepared, filled with detonating powder, such as Orsini 
used in attempting to assassinate Louis Napoleon. These 
were to be thrown into the carriage, and to make the work of 
death doubly sure, pistols were to be discharged into the ve¬ 
hicle at the same moment. The assassins had a vessel lying 
ready to receive them in the harbour. From thence they 
were to be carried to Mobile, in the seceded State of Alabama. 

Gen. Scott heard of the plot, and advised with Senator 
Seward ; and the}' sent Frederick W. Seward, the son of the 
Senator, to meet Mr. Lincoln in Philadelphia, and urge him 
to come to Washington in a private manner. It was late on 
Thursday night, February 21st, that Mr. Seward arrived in 
Philadelphia. He immediately went to the Continental Ho¬ 
tel, and communicated the facts to Mr. Lincoln. His reply 
was that he would fulfill his engagements in Philadelphia and 
Harrisburg if he should lose his life. 

On the next day, 22d, (Washington’s birthday,) according 
to promise, Mr. Lincoln raised the American flag on Inde¬ 
pendence Hall, Philadelphia. He had also accepted an invi¬ 
tation of the Pennsylvania Legislature to meet them that 
afternoon. He did so ; and remained at Harrisburg until 

8 


114 


PROGRESS OF THE 


20 minutes before 6 o’clock, that evening, when he embarked, 
in company with Col. Lamon, for Philadelphia, at which place 
he arrived at 11 £ o’clock, and took the through night train 
(which was a little behind time) to Washington. The party 
entered the sleeping car at Philadelphia, and passed through 
Baltimore without any one there knowing he was aboard the 
train. They arrived in Washington at 6J o’clock on Saturday 
morning, the 23d of February. The President wore no dis¬ 
guise whatever, but journeyed in his ordinary traveling dress. 
His enemies had sworn that he should never be inaugurated ; 
therefore it was necessary to keep a close watch on the move¬ 
ments of the conspirators. This was done by the aid of de¬ 
tectives until after his inauguration. The names of the con¬ 
spirators are in the possession of responsible parties, including 
the President, but for wise purposes are withheld for the 
present. 

Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated President on the 4th of March, 
1861. After being introduced to the assembled crowd by 
Senator Baker, of Oregon, he read his inaugural address, and 
was then sworn in by Chief Justice Taney. 

While President Lincoln and his Cabinet were engaged in sifting out 
and sending adrift the official traitors that surrounded Buchanan, the 
South was mostly occupied in getting control of all the property belong¬ 
ing to the General Government and arranging matters so as to be¬ 
come absolute masters of all the slaveholding States. The Golden Cir¬ 
cle, and other secret military organizations, gave them great advan¬ 
tage in getting an organized army early into the field. They had long 
been drilling for the conflict which they had brought about, and which 
they long since had determined to settle only by the sword ; their minds 
were made up; not wavering, but settled and determined and impatient 
for the strife. The free States did not dream that the plot was so exten¬ 
sive, or that treason was so deeply rooted and universal in the slave 
States. From the President down the people of the North were sur¬ 
prised and confounded, and for a time were unable to determine what 
course to pursue. While we were wavering and inclining to compro¬ 
mise, the South was firm and resolved to accept none. Unconditional 
independence was their ultimatum. Mr. Lincoln did not understand mat¬ 
ters when, on the 15th of April, he called for only 75,000 volunteers, 
and commanded the rebels to return to peace in twenty days. To this 
small demand Gov. Magoffin, of Kentucky, Gov. Letcher, of Virginia, 
Gov, Harris, of Tennessee, and Gov. Jackson of Missouri, (all slave 
States) refused to furnish their quotas. This was an eye-opener ; and 
Mr. Lincoln now for the first time began to realize his condition and the 



slaveholder’s rebellion. 


115 


condition of the country. The free States began to vote money and or¬ 
ganize armies to support the Federal cause. 

While the treasonable Confederate commissioners were in Washington 
threatening and demanding, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York 
were organizing and sending forward regiments. Oil the 18th of April 
the Pennsylvania volunteers reached Washington. On the same day the 
Massachusetts 6th regiment passed through New York on its way, 
and next day, while passing through Baltimore, was attacked by a pro¬ 
slavery mob. Two of its.men were killed, and ten wounded. They fired 
into the mob, killing eleven, and wounding about thirty. The same day 
the New York 7th regiment left for Washington. The Governor of Ma^ 
ryland and Mayor of Baltimore informed the President that Baltimore 
Was in the hands of a mob, and troops going that way to the capital 
would have to fight their way through. On the 3d of May Mr. Lincoln 
called for 42,000 three years’ men. He was still loth to believe that the 
entire slave States were rotten with treason. The South had called for 
no particular number of troops, but on the 9th of May the Rebel Con¬ 
gress authorized Davis to accept all that offered. 

The object of the war was wholly misunderstood by a great majority 
at the North, and is hardly yet understood by all. The South went into 
the contest united in relation to the cause, object, and policy of the war. 
The free States embarked in it, divided both as to its cause, policy to 
be pursued, and object to be attained. Some Generals supposed that in 
protecting slave property the Union could be cemented, by convincing 
the South that the free States did not wish to molest, but on the con¬ 
trary would fight for the sacred institution. Others thought that it was 
not the business of the Union army to concern itself about slavery, 
either to protect or destroy it. Still another very powerful and intelli¬ 
gent class, seeing a little further, discovered slavery to be the heart of 
the rebellion, and that the quickest way to destroy it was to strike it 
where it lived. The first class loved slavery for its own sake ; the sec¬ 
ond neither admired nor hated it, but thought it impolitic to meddle with 
it; the third despised and detested it, and saw in its downfall a fruitful 
victory, and a restored and happy Union, extending from the Lakes to 
the Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with a justified present 
and a glorious future. The first party despised the abolitionists more 
than they did the rebels; the second class blamed them for bringing 
about the war ; the third, having a foundation like the rock of Gibraltar, 
remained firm amidst the changing storms and waves of the political sea. 

Some men’s judgments lie buried so deep that experience, although a 
great teacher, is unable to reach them. This class, with eyes wide open 
at noonday, will swear it is night. They invariably despise Mr. Lin¬ 
coln, and admire Davis and Lee. Indeed, some of those who voted for 


116 


DYING STRUGGLE OF THE REBELLION. 


Lincoln, and are supposed to be high in his confidence, have even at 
this late day failed to discover that slavery has anything to do with 
the war. 

Despised by the South, hated by the Democratic place-men and their 
dupes, counciled and suspicioned by the conservatives, and deceived by 
traitors in disguise, Mr. Lincoln must have been directed by divine wis¬ 
dom and strengthened by its power to have grown so fast and so strong 
amidst such adverse surroundings. 

On the 21st of July Gen. McDowell, with anorganized force of 18,000 
inexperienced troops, attacked Gen. Beauregard, with 27,000 rebels, at 
Bull Run. For ten hours the ground was hotly contested, when, without any 
seeming cause, a panic seized the Union army, and the entire force fled 
in disorder back towards the Capital. Our loss was about 500 killed and 
1,000 wounded, and Beauregard had taken 1,500 prisoners. This was 
the first effort the disarmed and paralyzed Federal Government made to 
strike back at the traitors. It was a weak and unsuccessful stroke, and 
served to inspire them to new and more desperate deeds. 

On the 10th of August, Gen. Lyon, with 5,200 men, at Wilson’s Creek, 
Missouri, made an attack on McCulloch, Rains, Price and Jackson, with 
a combined force of 24,000 rebels. The rebel loss was greater at this 
battle than Beauregard had sustained at Bull Run, being 421 killed and 
1,300 wounded ; the Union loss was 263 killed and 721 wounded. The 
odds were tremendous and the contest desperate. The brave and heroic 
Lyon was killed while heading a charge on the enemy’s lines. His 
troops retreated in good order to Rolla. 

John C. Breckenridge had remained in Kentucky until Sept. 21. His 
object in so doing was to use his influence to unite that State with Jeff. 
Davis. On the 20th of June Gen. McClellan first took command of the 
troops in Western Virginia, and on the 22d of July he was placed in 
command of the army of the Potomac. On the 1st of November he was 
appointed Commander-in-chief, which office, on account of age, General 
Scott had resigned. On the 13th of May he commenced his advance 
into Virginia, and on the 17th drove the rebels across the Chickahominy. 
On the 23d his own army crosses the same stream, and on the 26th he 
takes possession of Hanover Court House, and on the 31st fights the 
battles of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. On the 25th of June he com¬ 
menced his Seven Days’ battles before Richmond—battles of Gaines’ 
Hill, Golding’s Farm, Chickahominy, Savage Station, White Oak Swamps, 
and ending at Malvern Hills, July 1st. None of these battles were con¬ 
sidered a success for the cause of the Union ; yet the rebels were severely 
punished in many of these terrible but undecisive contests. 

President Lincoln, after witnessing the disasters that had befallen 
McClellan, issued a call for 300,000 volunteers. On the 11th of July he 


DYING STRUGGLE OF THE REBELLION. 


117 


appointed Gen. Halleck Commander-in-chief. He visited the shattered 
army of the Potomac, and had a talk with McClellan. On the 6th, Gen. 
Hooker, with part of the army of the Potomac, abandoned Malvern Hill. 
On the 16th McClellan evacuated Harrison’s Landing, and on the 17th 
his rear-guard crossed the Chickahominy. Gen. Pope, who had been 
assigned to the command of the army of Virginia, on the 26th of June, 
now, on the 17th of July, commenced retreating towards the Poto¬ 
mac, and on the 30th he fought the second battle of Bull Run, was de¬ 
feated, and his entire army made its retreat in the night. After 41 
days of continued disaster, Pope was relieved of his command. 

The rebels, taking advantage of their success against McClellan and 
Pope, were now threatening Washington. On Sept 2d Gen. McClellan was 
assigned to take command of the army for the defence of the Capital. 
Burnside had the day before evacuated Fredericksburg, and on the 5th 
Gen. Lee commenced, at the Point of Rocks, the invasion of Mary¬ 
land. On the 17th the battle of Antietam was fought, after which Lee 
retired across the Potomac. On the 22d Presid’t Lincoln issued his proviso 
emancipation proclamation, and on the 1st of October visited McClellan, 
and urged him to cross the Potomac in pursuit of Lee. On the 26th 
McClellan’s army again began to advance, and on the 6th of November 
it occupied Warrenton, Va. On the 7th, after being unsuccessful, except 
in defence, for 470 days, and his inactive policy having cost about 
$1,000,000,0000, he was removed from command, and Gen. Burnside 
appointed to supersede him. The battle of Fredericksburg was fought 
by Burnside on the 13th, and on the 16th he retreated across the Rap¬ 
pahannock after severe loss. Bragg, who had been intrenched at Shel¬ 
by ville and Tullahoma, in Tennessee, was about this time dislodged and 
out-generaled by Rosecrans, who, by a master stroke of policy, be¬ 
came possessor of the military key of the South, Chattanooga. 

Except the few bright spots in the south and southwest, such as Mill 
Springs, Ky., Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, Fort Donaldson, on the 
Cumberland, Farragut at New Orleans, and the evacuations of Nashville, 
Corinth, and Memphis, the year 1862 was full of disaster to the Union 
cause. The mere mention of Virginia or Richmond was enough to 
to make a Union man sick. 

The year 1863 commenced with Mr. Lincoln’s emancipation proclama¬ 
tion, which declared free the slaves in all States, or parts of States or 
Territories then in rebellion against the General Government. This 
righteous, just, necessary and popular measure, and the getting rid of 
McClellan, was the turning point in the war. Heaven then looked down 
and smiled upon the cause of theUnion, and the very next day, under Gen. 
Rosecrans, gave us a great victory at Stono River, with trifling loss. Gen. 
Bragg, who commanded the rebels, lost 14,560 men, the greater portion 


118 


DYING STRUGGLE OF THE REBELLION. 


of which were killed. On the 8th a great victory was obtained at Spring- 
field, Mo., and on the 9th Col. Ludlow succeeded in exchanging about 
20,000 rebel prisoners for the same amount of our men. On the 11th 
we captured Fort Arkansas and Fort McClernard ; our loss was only 
1,000, while that of the rebels was over 5,000,with all their arms and 
supplies. On the 25th the first colored regiment was organized at Port 
Royal, South Carolina. 

On the 26th Gen. Hooker succeeded Burnside in command of the army 
of the Potomac ; and on the 29th Gen. Banks promulgated the emanci¬ 
pation proclamation in New Orleans. On the 26th of February the In¬ 
dian Cherokee National Council repeals the secession ordinance, and 
forever abolishes slavery in their tribe. On the 10th of March the 1st 
South Carolina colored regiment captured Jacksonville, Florida, and on 
the 14th the mighty Farragut moved his Mississippi fleet past Port Hud¬ 
son, on the way to Vicksburg. On the 1st of April he passed the Grand 
Gulf batteries with small loss. On the 16th Admiral Porter’s fleet passed 
the Vicksburg batteries, losing only one transport and no men. On the 
28th of April, Gen. Hooker, with the army of the Potomac, crossed the 
Rappahannock, and on the 30th of April Gen. Grant’s army landed near 
Port Gibson, Mississippi, and on the 1st of May fought the battle of Port 
Gibson, and commenced marching on Vicksburg. On the 2d Hooker 
fought the battle of Chancellorville, a hotly contested fight. Stonewall 
Jackson, one of the most successful rebel Generals, was wounded, and 
died on the 10th inst. On the 6th Hooker retreated across the Rappa¬ 
hannock, but Lee was unable to pursue. On the 3d the colored South 
Carolina regiment returned from the Cambahee river raid, bringing with 
them 800 slaves and destroying over $2,000,000 worth of rebel property. 
On May 13th Yazoo City, Mississippi, was captured by our gun-boats, 
and rebel property destroyed amounting to over $2,000,000. 

On the 15th Gen. Grant defeated Pemberton at Edward’s Ferry, and 
on the 16th drives him to Big Black river. On the 17th Pemberton re¬ 
treated towards Vicksburg with great loss. On the 18th Gen. Grant 
invests Vicksburg. On the 21st the rebels offer to surrender Vicksburg 
if they are permitted to march out. Gen. Grant gives no conditions. 
On the 27th Gen. Banks assaults Port Hudson without success ; great 
bravery was displayed by the colored troops under his command. On 
the 28th Boston sent out the first colored regiment that went from the 
North. June 6th the negro troops defeated the rebels at Miliken’s Bend. 
On the 15th Lee marches into Maryland with 100,000 troops. On the 
28th Gen. Hooker was superseded by Gen. Meade. On the 30th the 
rebel outworks were breached at Vicksburg. On July 1st the battle of 
Gettysburg commenced, and continued with varied success until the 3d, 
when a great victory was won by Gen. Meade. Twenty-three thousand 


DYING STRUGGLE OF THE REBELLION. 


119 


of the rebels, killed and wounded, were left on the field, and 6,000 pris¬ 
oners fell into our hands. Lee retreated at night towards the Potomac. 
On the 4th Gen. Grant obtained his immortal victory at Vicksburg, 
capturing the entire rebel army, 31,720 men, with all their arms and 
equipments, and 234 guns. About the same time Port Hudson surrendered 
to Gen. Banks 7,000 prisoners and 40 pieces of artillery. An under¬ 
standing was had, that if Lee was successful in Maryland his friends 
were to rise in the city of New York. Chagrined at his defeat, and also 
mortified at Gen. Grant’s great triumph at Vicksburg, a pro-slavery riot 
broke out on the 13th, killing negroes, burning the colored Orphan Asy¬ 
lum, and killing peaceable citizens. Ihey were finally subdued on 
the 16th, after many of them had been killed. On the 26th John Mor¬ 
gan, with his entire command, was captured near New Lisbon, Ohio, 
while making a daring rebel raid, (Morgan has since been killed in Ken¬ 
tucky.) John B. Floyd died at Abingdon, Va., Aug. 27th. October 
17th President Lincoln calls for 300,000 more volunteers. Nov. 24th, 
capture of Lookout Mountain, in Tennessee, Gen. Hooker fighting above 
the clouds. 

God waited until the nation resolved to be just before he gave it suc¬ 
cess. You may search history in vain to find such a series of victories 
as those that followed the commencement of 1863. Battles which in 
their magnitude would have appalled all Europe were fought, and vic¬ 
tories made fruitful for the Union cause, not only in the positions gained, 
but in the numbers of the enemy slain ; which numbered, in less than 
125 days, over 50,000, while those taken prisoners in the same length of 
time amounted to over 100,000 more. Since the commencement of Mr. 
Lincoln’s presidential term, Russia has emancipated her slaves, and at a 
great meeting held July 9, 1864, at Geneva, Switzerland, patriotic reso¬ 
lutions were passed, applauding his emancipation policy. The good 
and wise of all countries, from the confines of Russia to half-civilized 
Japan, endorse and sustain it. 

Since Gen. Grant, as Lieutenant General, has taken command of all the 
armies, and especially assumed command of the army of the Potomac, 
there has been a series of successful strategic movements, in which 
Lee has been out-generaled, surprised, and forced to come out from 
behind breastworks and fight or abandon his fortifications. Grant holds 
the rebellion by the throat; and Gen. Sherman in his great campaign 
through the center of the Confederacy, has slain about 50,000 traitors, 
and captured over 150 guns, and has at last taken the heart out of the 
monster in the capture of Atlanta. Farragut who, in 1862, illuminated 
the Mexican Gulf, and lit up the Mississippi with the flame of his guns, 
has gone with his illuminators into the dark bay of Mobile. The forts 
for the defence of the city are already captured, and the fall of the city 
itself is only a question of a few days time. 


120 


DYING STRUGGLE OF THE REBELLION. 


Since the President issued his emancipation proclamation, we have, 
with few exceptions, had almost uninterrupted success. Slavery 
is abolished in the District of Columbia. Maryland has become civil, 
and has also abolished slavery. Delaware has done the same. Mis¬ 
souri, that was overrun with treason, has also passed an act of eman¬ 
cipation. Louisiana has been reclaimed from the hand of the usurper, and 
has done likewise. Western Virginia has done the same. Tennessee 
has bid good-bye to the rebels, and, with Arkansas, is determined 
to come into the Union free. Georgia is now beginning to look 
up ; the storm is passing over her, and in a few more weeks she will be 
out of danger. In North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Mis¬ 
sissippi, Alabama, and Virginia, large portions of each and all of these 
States are wrested from the grasp of the spoiler. Since Jan. 1st, 1863, 
sufficient territory has been retaken from the rebels to form a country 
larger than the British Empire. 

Mr. Lincoln was unanimously re-nominated by the Union Convention 
that assembled at Baltimore on the 7th of June, for a second term of 
office. No Convention ever yet assembled in the United States, that so 
completely represented the will and wants of the American people. We 
predict that he will carry almost every State, entitled to an electoral vote 
for President, in November, 1864. To change the policy of the Gen¬ 
eral Government, every man of reflection sees disaster, disgrace, and 
ruin to the cause of the Union. With the reelection of Abraham Lin¬ 
coln of Illinois, and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the Union will vir¬ 
tually be restored. These are the only Union candidates, and they will 
receive the undivided support of every Union man. 

The embarrassing circumstances which surrounded Mr. Lincoln during 
the commencement of his present term, the energy by which he overcame 
all obstacles, and his undying devotion to the cause of his country, en¬ 
titles him, like our first Presidents, to a second term. With this 
will come a restoration of our glorious Union, and an honorable and last¬ 
ing peace. Having finished the great work so ably commenced by the 
early Fathers, his well earned fame will enter immortality in company 
with Washington. 

THE LAST DESPERATE SCHEME AND DEATH STRUGGLE OF THE 
SLAVE POWER.—FACTS FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND 
FOOD FOR REFLECTION FOR EVERY MAN WHO VOTES FOR 
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN NO¬ 
VEMBER, 1864. 

The South, finding that separation and independence could not be won 
by the sword, have, by the advice of the slave power, resorted to 
the old game. For this purpose agents were sent to Canada, to dictate 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


121 


a platform, and secure a candidate for Vice President at the Chicago 
Democratic Convention, of August the 30th. This was all they expected ; 
it was all they desired. The peace platform was to be held up to their 
weakened and disheartened Southern brethren as a gleam of hope. By 
this means they expect to be able to hold out until after the presidential 
election, although their already desperate efforts have, in the language 
of Gen. Grant, “robbed both the cradle and the grave/’ and in their 
own language, started the blood with the sweat. In this des¬ 
perate condition they needed a new and powerful stimulas to keep up 
their courage for a short time longer. This they got in the platform 
adopted at Chicago—it promised that hostilities should immediately 
cease. The slave power also claimed the candidate for Vice Presi¬ 
dent ; and in this they demanded a reliable man, one that would be equiva¬ 
lent to Jeff. Davis himself. This they secured in the nomination of Pen « 
dleton of Ohio. With the platform to induce the South to hold out a lit¬ 
tle longer, and Pendleton to occupy a similar position as did John Tyler 
in 1840—with this hellish plot secretly arranged, they hold out to the 
war Democrats the treacherous, blood-stained hand of the expiring slave 
power. The leaders, blinded by a love for office, fail to discover the 
deep-laid scheme, grasp with joy the hand of the monster, which in his 
exhausted condition is already palsied with weakness and growing cold 
with death ; and, in order that this demon may survive, agree to make a 
second Harrison of Gen. McClellan. Who can fail to see that if he should 
be so unfortunate as to be elected, the slave power would, by his as¬ 
sassination, secure disunion and eternal separation. Is any man so fool¬ 
ish as to suppose that in such a position his life would be worth a straw ? 

WHY DO THE SLAVEHOLDERS DETEST THE UNION ? 

Claiming the right of secession and revolution is the only 
means to secure a separation from the free States. 

But why wish to separate ? Let the Northern people cease 
to sympathize , and open their eyes , ears and understandings to 
a realization of what the South demands , and why it de¬ 
mands it. 

They, the rebels, demand an entire separation of the slave 
States from the free States on the line of slavery ; and the 
numerous bloody battles already fought show boldness and 
determination on their part to secure it. But what peculiar 
interest in the South demands the separation ? What portion of 
the Southern people, and what are their occupations in life, 
who for years have been crying, “ D—n the Union ?” 

It is not the mercantile interest. The merchants of the 
SoiTh, as a class, have everything to lose, and nothing to gain, 


122 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


by a destruction of the Union. Neither is it the mechanical 
interest; the mechanics of the South have never manifested 
any dissatisfaction towards the Union. Neither have the 
boating or railroad interests anything to expect by its de¬ 
struction, except complications in the carrying trade by in¬ 
sults and delays from custom-house officers, and increased 
taxation ; they are not opposed to the Union. Religion of 
every kind and creed, without a single favorite, are all re¬ 
spected and protected alike, each and all enjoying the glori¬ 
ous privilege of worshipping God at their own time and 
place, and in their own way. It is not the four millions of 
poor, disfranchised, oppressed and degraded slaves that are 
scattered over the South who are rising up against, and de¬ 
termined to destroy the Union ; no, no, it is not these. 

Who , then , is engaged in this foul plot? It was commenced, 
and is continued, by those wicked traffickers in human flesh, 
the slaveholders , who, failing to control, have determined 

TO DESTROY THE UNION. 

Now for the slaveholder’s testimony as to why they are in 
arms : 

The Richmond Enquirer, vindicates the war on the ground 
that “ the experiment of universal liberty has failed. The 
evils of free society are insufferable and impracticable in the 
long run. It is everywhere starving, demoralized and insur¬ 
rectionary. Policy and humanity alike forbid the extension 
of its evils to new peoples and coming generations. Thus 
free society must fall and give way to slave society, a 
social system old as the world, and universal as man.” 

Another witness —Dr. Palmer, the moral mouth-piece of the 
slaveholders, preaching at New Orleans, said : “ The provi¬ 
dential trust of the South is to perpetuate the institution of 
domestic slavery as now existing, with freest scope for its 
natural development.” We must, says the Doctor, “lift our¬ 
selves to the highest moral ground, and proclaim to all the 
world that ive hold this trust from God , and in its occupancy 
are prepared to stand or fall.” 

Another witness —Alexander Stephens, the Yice President 
of the slaveholder’s government, in a speech at Savannah, 
Georgia, March 12th, 1861, said: “That African slavery was the 
immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. 
Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the rock on 
which the old Union would split. The prevailing opinion 
entertained by him, and most of the leading statesmen at the 
time of the formation of the old Constitution, was, that the 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


123 


enslavement of the African was in violation of the law of na¬ 
ture—that it was wrong in principle, social, moral and potitical . 
Our new Government is founded on directly the opposite idea , 
and is the first in the history of the world based on the great 
truth that the negro is not equal to the white man ; that 
slavery is his natural and normal condition. Thus the stone 
rejected by the first builders is become the chief stone in the 
corner of our new edifice. Negro slavery is but in its in¬ 
fancy ; we must increase and expand it. Central America 
and Mexico are all open to us.” 

At a public meeting held in Charleston, South Carolina, on 
the 17th of December, 1861, one of the speakers remarked: 
“The knell of this Union has been sounded, and it must go 
down, if it has to go down, in a stream of blood, and in a mul¬ 
titude of human sufferings. Three thousand millions of prop¬ 
erty (meaning slaves) is involved in this question. That 
Union of which so many speak in terms of laudation, its vir¬ 
tues, its spirit has forever fled. It is now a dead carcass, 
stinking in the nostrils of the South.” 

Howell Cobb, of Georgia, says : “ There is, perhaps, no solu¬ 
tion of the great problem of reconciling the interests of labor 
and capital, so as to protect each from the encroachments and 
oppressions of the other, so simple as slavery. By making 
the laborer himself capital, the. conflict ceases and the interests be¬ 
come identical .” 

A Curious and Explanatory Relic. —On Barnwell’s Island, 
South Carolina, at the house of Mr. Prescott, were found his 
private papers. Rebels often run at the approach of the 
Union army. This traitor fled in such haste that even his 
private correspondence was left behind. Years after he wrote 
the communication calling out this letter, he was a good Dem¬ 
ocrat. In fact James Buchanan thought him so worthy as to 
have him as Assistant Secretary of State. The letter was 
written by one Garnet, then a member of the Virginia Con¬ 
vention, sitting to revise its Constitution, and dated May 3d, 
1851. 

Garnet says : “In case of South Carolina seceding, I think 
the Federal Government would use force, commencing with a 
blockade of Charleston. If you could only force the block¬ 
ade, and bring the Government to direct force, the fexling in 
Virginia would be very great. Eastern Virginia is strongly 
in the right to secede, and is with Carolina, but the West has 
only 60,000 slaves to 494,000 whites ; there is the rub. Members 
from this portion of the State talk strange, and I have been 


124 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


pained to hear them. In this body I have apprehensions , as 
well as hopes. You will object to the term Democrat . De¬ 
mocracy, in its original philosophical sense, is indeed incompat¬ 
ible with slavery and the whole system of Southern society. 
If the General Government should succeed, Southern civili¬ 
zation (slavery) is gone.” 

One more witness, and, as Lawyers say, we rest. 

The Southern Literary Messenger , Richmond, Va., says : 
“ Any man who does not love slavery for its own sake, as a 
divine institution, who does not worship it as the corner-stone 
of civil liberty, who does not adore it as the only possible 
condition on which a republican form of Government can be 
erected, and who does not in his inmost soul wish to see it 
extended over the whole earth as a means of reformation, 
second in dignity, importance and sacredness only to the 
Christian religion—he who does not love slavery with this 
love, is an abolitionist.” 

The first witness, the Richmond Enquirer, sets forth the 
objects of the war made by the slaveholders to be the total 
destruction of liberty, alleging that it is a monstrous evil that 
should not go down to future generations. 

Then we are told by the second witness, Dr. Palmer, “ that 
slavery is a Providential trust, and he calls on slaveholders 
everywhere to proclaim to all the world that they hold this 
trust from God.” Did ever man hear such blasphemy? Claim¬ 
ing that God has empowered them to establish markets and 
make merchandise of immortal souls, wallowing in the sweat 
and drinking the blood of those for whom Christ died. 

Then Stephens, high in authority, the third witness, says : 
“ the war was commenced by and in the interest of slavery. 
He also admits that all the leading statesmen who lived at 
the time, and helped to frame the old Constitution, believed 
slavery to be wrong ; they rejected it as being unworthy to 
be inserted. But, says Stephens, “ the stone that the build¬ 
ers rejected has become the chief one in the corner of our 
new edifice.” 

The fourth, Cobb, says the only way to subdue the irrepress¬ 
ible conflict going on between capital and labor, is to make 
slaves of all laborers everywhere; then, he says, the conflict 
will coase. Seward only proclaimed that there was a conflict 
going on between free and slave labor, but Cobb goes deeper 
and places it between capital and labor. How would some of 
these free laborers of the North like to have some Democratic 
Southerner buy them and hold them as slaves ? Is that De 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


125 


mocracy ? De Bow’s Review, published at New Orleans. Yol. 
XXY, for December, 1858, page 663, advocates the enslaving of 
the white race. He says: “ To say the white race is not the 
true and best slave race is to contradict all history. Too much 
liberty is the great evil of our age, and the vindication of 
slavery the best corrective.” 

Reader, if you refuse to swallow and believe all these un¬ 
natural, treasonable sentiments, you are then branded with 
the horrible name of abolitionist. 

We are often surprised that slavery should so hate its own 
offspring. Abolitionists did not create slavery ; but who has 
the hardihood to deny that slavery has made every Abo¬ 
litionist now in America? However obnoxious the child 
may be to the parent, it is a legitimate offspring, and not the 
unwilling production of a rape. And as it required slavery 
to produce abolitionists, so it required slavery to excite hatred 
to free society and free government, which has terminated in 
dreadful civil war. In the language of Calhoun, “ It is the 
only question of sufficient magnitude to bring about the de¬ 
struction of the Union.” 


SLAVERY. 

The highest card in the deck of sin, 

Controlling all the evil pack within; 

It’s high in every game of human vice— 

In murder, too, it loads the dice. 

Kings, Queens come first, then navy Jack, 

But this card played secures the pack ; 

By color cheats and holds the game, 

While Hoyle proclaims the suits the same. 

Condemn not color—oh, man, be wise— 

God made all shades beneath the skies. 

The voice of nature, whispering man be free, 

Cries slavery’s death in every living tree. 

By looking into the ancient histories of those countries 
that held slaves, we find that their mode of maintaining slavery 
was by tortures and death. But as America is the land of in¬ 
vention, perhaps some inventive genius has convinced the 
Almighty that a better mode is by doing violence to the hu¬ 
man mind. Thus by Act of Assembly of Louisiana, passed 
in March, 1830, “all persons who shall teach or cause to be 
taught any slave in this State, to read or write, shall, on con¬ 
viction thereof, be imprisoned not less than one or more than 
twelve months.” 

In Georgia, in 1829, it was enacted, “if any slave, negro, or 


126 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


free person of color, or any white, shall teach any other slave 
or negro, or free person of color to read or write, either writen 
or printed characters, the said free person of color, or slave, 
shall be punished by fine and whipping, or fine or whipping, 
at the discretion of the Court; and if a white person so of¬ 
fending, he, she, or they, shall be fined not more than $500, 
and a term in the County Jail, at the discretion of the Court” 

Virginia, according to the Code of 1846 : “ Every assem¬ 

bly of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or 
writing, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any Justice may is¬ 
sue his warrant to any officer or other person, requiring him to 
enter any place where such assembly may be, and seize any 
negro therein ; and he or any other Justice may order such 
negro to be punished with stripes. If a white person assem¬ 
ble with negroes for the purpose of instructing them to read 
or write, he shall be imprisoned in jail, not exceeding six 
months, and fined not exceeding $100.” 

In 1834, South Carolina passed an act as follows : " If any 

person shall hereafter teach any slave to read or write, or shall 
aid in assisting any slave-to read or write, or cause or procure 
any slave to be taught to read and write, such person, if a 
free white person, shall be fined $100, and imprisoned not more 
than six months. Slaves and free persons of color, shall re¬ 
ceive not exceeding fifty lashes, and fined not exceeding $50.” 

In Alabama, “ any person who shall attempt to teach any free 
person of color, or slave, to spell, read or write, shall, upon 
conviction, be fined not less than $200, and not to exceed $500.” 

Other slave States have similar enactments, but the forego¬ 
ing are deemed sufficient to show to what lengths this bar¬ 
barous rascality has been carried. The ancients never got 
so low in crime ; they never dreamed of fettering the mind. 

‘‘ The slave youths of promising genius,” says Gibbon, the 
Roman historian, “ were instructed in the arts and sciences, 
and almost every liberal profession and industrial pursuit 
suited to the necessities of Roman society.” Thus the educa¬ 
tion of slaves was not prohibited by the Roman Government. 
The same is true of society in the middle Ages. Education 
elevated the slave in his social condition, and opened a way to 
emancipation. 

Congreve’s Politics of Aristotle, page 496, says: “ The 
only true analysis to the slavery of Greece and Rome, is to be 
found in that which is still prevalent in Asia, where the evils 
of West India or American slavery are wholly unknown, and 
the relation of master and slave are accepted by both in Ar- 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


127 


istotle’s words, ‘ at once light, and for the common interests/ 
On the other hand, if we seek for an analogy in ancient times 
to modern slavery, we may find one in the Catifiendia of the 
Roman nobles, or what may be termed the Corn Plantations of 
Sicily. The population there was slave, and there was no 
check to the misuse of their power by the agents or mas¬ 
ters who superintended them, and there was no intercourse, no 
sense of connection to soften the inherent hardships of their 
condition. They rebelled once and again ; and there was dan¬ 
ger lest their revolt should spread—lest throughout the Roman 
world the slave population should feel that it had a common 
cause.” 

Aristotle’s opinion, was, “ that there ought be held out to the 
slave the hope of liberty as the reward of his service. Thus 
by a gradual infiltration, the slave population might pass into 
the free.” It did so at Rome through the intermediate stage 
of freedom, and the position of freedmen at Rome in the later 
Republic, and even more under the Empire, was such that the 
prospect of reaching it must have been a great inducement to 
the slaves to acquiesce in their present lot. 

De Tocqueville says : “ The slave among the ancients be¬ 
longed to the same race as his master ; and he was often the 
superior of the two in education and instruction.-” Thus 
hardly any similarity existed between ancient and modern 
slavery. The former were educated, at least many of them, 
and had no peculiar dress to distinguish them from their 
masters ; and many of them, naturally and by acquisition, 
were his superiors. But American slavery is very different. 
First , the slaves are of a different race. Second , they are 
a different color. The tradition of slavery dishonors the 
race, and the peculiarities of the race perpetuate the tra¬ 
dition of slavery. Third , American slavery not only con¬ 
trols the body, but aims to obliterate the mind of the slave. 
And taking advantage of all these peculiarities, the South 
has stepped beyond everything heretofore known on earth 
or in hell , to secure the degradation of an entire race. 

Well might Jefferson remark : “ Can the liberties of the na¬ 
tion be thought secure when we have removed the only basis— 
a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties 
are the gift of God ? That they are not to be violated but 
with hh wrath. Indeed , I tremble for my country ivlien I re¬ 
flect that God is just; that his justness can not sleep forever ; 
that considering numbers, nature, and natural means, only a 
revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation. 


128 


DETESTING THE UNION. 


is among possible events, that it may become probable by su¬ 
pernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which 
can take side with us in such a contest.” 

What attribute of Almighty God would allow him to take 
the side of the oppressor ? We ash only, and the answer set¬ 
tles the argument as to which side will succeed. Sunk far be¬ 
low the civil law, the words of the Roman poet concerning the 
poor Plebian, with a few alterations, belong to the American 
slave— 

Only leaving the poor negro his single tie to life, 

The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife. 

The gentle speech, the balm for all his vexed soul endures, 

The kiss in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours ; 

Still let the maiden’s beauty swell the father’s heart with pride, 

Still let the bridegroom’s arms enfold an unpolluted bride. 

Spare him the inexpiable wrong, the unnatural shame, 

That turns his human heart to steel, the white man’s blood to flame. 
Lest when his latest hope is fled, you taste of his despair, *• 

And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare. 

We have, in the body of this work, established the fact 
that the Southern slaveholders and their Notliern abettors 
were the sole originators of the terrible war now raging. We 
will cloSe the volume with James Madison’s opinion, as set 
forth in the 2d vol., page 787 of Benton's Thirty Years in the 
Senate . Benton says “Mr. Madison was a Southern man, 
but his Southern home could not blind his mental vision as to 
the origin, design, and consequences of the slavery agitation. 
He gave to that agitation a Southern origin, to that design a 
disunion end, to that end disastrous consequences, both to 
South and North.” 


HISTORICAL SKETCH 


OF THE 

GREAT PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST 
Of 1864. 


Although Pierce and Buchanan had wrecked the Demo¬ 
cratic party, its leaders, with what assistance they secured 
from the South, made an attempt to bind up the fragments 
floating about in the free States, in conjuction with Jeff Davis, 
to make a last dying effort to check the rising progress of civ¬ 
ilization. For this purpose they gathered at Chicago on the 
29th of August, and presented the names of George B. McClel¬ 
lan for President, and George H. Pendleton for Vice-President, 
agreed on and adopted the following 

PLATFORM. 

Resolved , That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere 
with unswerving fidelity to the Union under the Constitution, 
as the only solid foundation of our strength, security, and hap¬ 
piness as a people, and as a frame-work of government equally 
conducive to the welfare and prosperity of all the States, both 
Northern and Southern. 

Resolved , That this Convention does explicitly declare, as 
the sense of the American People, that, after four years of 
failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during 
which, under the pretense of a military necessity of a war 
power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself 
has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and 
private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity 
of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, 
and the public welfare, demand that immediate efforts be 

9 



130 


HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 


made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate 
Convention of all the States, or other peaceable means to the 
end that at the earliest practical moment peace may be restored 
on the basis of the Federal Union of the States. 

Resolved , That the direct interference of the military au¬ 
thority of the United States in the recent elections held in 
Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Delaware, was a shameful 
violation of the Constitution, and the repetition of such acts 
in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and 
resisted with all the means and power under our control. 

Resolved , That the aim and object of the Democratic party 
is to preserve the Federal Union, and the rights of the States 
unimpaired ; and they hereby declare that they consider the 
Administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous 
powers not granted by the Constitution, the subversion of the 
civil by military law in States not in insurrection, the arbi¬ 
trary military arrest, imprisonment, trial and sentence of 
American citizens in States where civil law exists in full force, 
the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press, the de¬ 
nial of the right of asylum, the open and avowed disregard of 
State rights, the employment of unusual test-oaths, and the 
interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear 
arms, as calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and 
the perpetuation of a government deriving its just powers 
from the consent of the governed. 

Resolved, That the shameful disregard of the Administra¬ 
tion to its duty in respect to our fellow citizens who now and 
long have been prisoners of war in a suffering condition, de¬ 
serves the severest reprobation, on the score alike of public 
interest and common humanity. 

Resolved , That the sympathy of the Democratic party is 
heartily and earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army 
wdio are and have been in the field under the flag of our 
country • and, in the event of our attaining power, they will 
receive all the care and protection, regard and kindness, that 
the brave soldiers of the Republic have so nobly earned. 

The platform was a compromise between the two frag¬ 
ments, one was represented by such men as Vallandigham 
and Pendleton. The former was made a Knight of the Golden 
Circle while exiled in the town of Windsor, C. W., by one 
Amos Green, Grand Master of the order for Illinois. The 
latter, Pendleton, had perhaps been a member of long stand- 


GREAT PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OP 1864. 


131 


ing ; this pair of political adventurers and their dupes went 
into the Chicago Convention, stripped to the waist, to battle 
for the South. 

They held that any State, at its option, can pull the key¬ 
stone from the Federal arch, even if the destruction of the 
entire fabric should be the result; slavery they held to be a 
beneficent institution, and, like the leaders of the rebellion, be¬ 
lieved it to be of divine origin; rather than admit the right of 
the National Government to strike back, or admit slavery to 
be wrong, they justified the rebellion, and, with one accord, 
shouted, “ Let the South go !” 

They justified secession as constitutional, and slavery they 
held to be the law of God. With such opinions, cowardice 
was all that prevented them from shedding patriotic blood. 
These are the identical sentiments of Jeff. Davis, who sent 
Sanders, Thompson and Clay from Richmond, as commission¬ 
ers to meet Vallandigham and other friends in Canada, there 
to engineer the assembling Democratic Convention. They 
ran up the white flag and cried “peace;” with them, peace 
and disunion meant the same ; disunion , they claimed, had 
already taken place, and if peace could be obtained while the 
rebel government was in full blast, its authority thereby 
would be acknowledged, and separation become eternal. Be¬ 
lieving the nation disheartened, they thought to take advan¬ 
tage of the hour, and even had sufficient influence to get the 
insertion of that traitorous and cowardly clause, in the second 
resolution of the platform, which declares that “ after four 
years of failure to restore the Union, by the experiment of 
war, &c” This clause in the resolution was inserted to dis¬ 
hearten the nation, to induce it to abandon the contest as 
hopeless ; it was also a thrust at the incapacity and inefficiency 
of the Federal army to cope with the rebels ; it conveyed the 
idea that no progress had been made, and insinuated that the 
rebellion was already a success. This assertion was not only 
a lie, but a slander, as the following facts plainly show. In 
1861, when the rebellion became general, the territory under 
the control of the rebels amounted to a 1,653,852 square miles, 


132 


HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 


and the population numbered 12,121,294. The Federal army 
had already won back by the sword 1,311,184 square miles of 
territory, and brought back a population of 7,638,062, leaving, 
at the time of the assembling of the Chicago Convention, 
only 342,668 square miles of territory under rebel rule, with 
the reduced population of only 4,458.232 souls. Yet, in the 
face of all these facts, this traitorous clique compelled the 
Convention to gratify the rebels by declaring the war for the 
Union a failure. This was a great triumph for Jeff Davis. 

Their hand was next seen in the nomination of one of their 
clan for Vice-President; the reasons for this are given more 
fully on pages 120 and 121. Their numerical strength was 
not so great as the McClellan party, but they were unscru¬ 
pulous, energetic and desperate. The friends of McClellan 
did not dream of the plot. They thought very little of plat¬ 
forms, and thought very little of resolutions ; they had un¬ 
bounded confidence in him—but the Knights had every thing 
ready. He would, if elected, have been brushed away like a 
cobweb, and the treason of the Vice-President, through official 
position, would have sealed the doom of the republic. 

McClellan's theory was to restore the Union by concessions 
and compromises with the South ; he held that the Constitu¬ 
tion itself was the creature of compromise. As a means of 
conciliation he was pledged to defend slavery by placing 
around it new guarantees. The proclamation of freedom is¬ 
sued by Lincoln was to be disavowed, and all the colored regi¬ 
ments {,numbering about 100,000 men ) in the Federal service 
were to be disbanded. All this was to be done as a measure of 
conciliation, to induce the rebels to stop the war. This gives 
the true meaning of the cant phrase “ the Union as it was, and 
the Constitution as it is." As an additional inducement for 
the traitors to stop whipping us, the Federal army was to be 
converted into a national police to catch and return slaves 
escaping from their masters. 

All this being done, if the South still remained unrecon¬ 
ciled, then the Federal army was, if possible, to be converted 
into an engine to crush out the anti-slavery sentiment in the 
free States. 


GREAT PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1864. 


138 


Every honest man, who wanted to do unto the rest of the 
human race as he would have them do unto him, was to be 
hunted like a wild beast—all to appease the unnatural discon¬ 
tent of slavery. This feeling showed itself very prominently 
at Democratic meetings. “ Hang Abe Lincoln,” “ hang Sew¬ 
ard,” “ hang Sumner,” “ hang Wilson,” hang Garrison,” 
“ hang Beecher,” “ hang Cheever,” “ hang every d—d Aboli¬ 
tionist son of a b—h.” Such was the then proposed Demo¬ 
cratic way of stopping the war. 

The Republican party they declared to be the cause of the 
war. Lincoln had no right to defend the national life. The 
war on his part was unconstitutional, wicked and malicious, 
and carried on by the fiendish spirit of abolitionism ; that he 
was not conducting the war to restore the Union, but continu¬ 
ing it for the benefit of adventurers and shoddy contractors ; 
that the South would make peace to-day if their constitutional 
rights were guaranteed. The enormous debt of England, 
about 4,000,000,000, was declared to be as nothing in compar¬ 
ison to the burden Lincoln was heaping on us ; greenbacks 
and national bank money were denounced as valueless ; the 
old banking institutions of the States were appealed to to act in 
self-defense by discrediting the Government currency ; the 
shipping interest was drawn into the contest, and declared to 
diave been neglected and ruined ; the tax-gatherer was pointed 
at as little better than a highwayman ; the President was 
charged with being a usurper and destroyer of civil liberty. 
If the orators and press of the Democratic party agreed in 
any one thing, it was in hating “ Lincoln ”—they hated his ad¬ 
ministration— they hated all he did and said—they hated the 
national government because he had control of it—they hated 
the war because he was conducting it—they hated the Union 
because he loved and was trying to save it—they despised 
liberty because he proclaimed it to be the natural inheritance 
of all men , black as well as white. 

So infuriated were some of these madmen that they would 
have regarded it as a privilege to become slaves themselves 
rather than that the negro should be made free ; some dreaded 


134 


HISTORICAL SKETCH, ETC. 


* 

negro competition—(shame)—they feared he might rival them 
in energy and ability. This class wanted the slave kept in 
slavery for self-protection. Every low and selfish interest 
was roused up in opposition to Mr. Lincoln. Resistance to 
the draft was counselled and advised. Democrats were told 
that they could get no office. McClellan, they said, had been 
removed from command of the army, because he was a good 
Democrat. The rebels in front of Petersburg, Va., Septem¬ 
ber 2d, cheered when they heard of McClellan's nomination 
at Chicago. The foreign population were told that their 
friends in the army were put in front, with Democratic regi¬ 
ments, to do all the hard fighting. If an honest, straight for¬ 
ward man refused to act with the party, he was pointed at as 
one who had sold his birthright for greenbacks. Hopelessly 
demoralized themselves, they failed to destroy confidence in 
the Federal Government—they deserved more than defeat , and 
they got part of their deserts. 


THE CAMPAIGN 


AS CONDUCTED BY 

THE UNION PAETY, 

TERMINATING IN THE RE-ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN 
FOR A SECOND TERM. 


The party that, bore in its bosom the patriotic heart of the 
nation, conscious of its strength, and confiding in the justice 
of its cause, made its nomination early. The demoralized De¬ 
mocracy hung back to see if anything would turn up ; and it 
was not until the 29th day of August that they entered the 
canvass. Lincoln had done many things during the term he 
had served, to enrage the traitors in the South, and vex their 
friends in the North. Suspension of the writ of Habeas Cor¬ 
pus, and the Proclamation of Freedom, were declared by them 
to be treason. Before either of these measures had been 
adopted, they plotted to take his life. He had to wade through 
treason to reach the chair of State. 

It was a dark day in our country’s history when an armed 
guard had to surround the hotel (Willard’s) where the Chief 
Magistrate had taken temporary lodgings, to prevent his as¬ 
sassination. And on the day (4th March, ’61,) of his Inaugura¬ 
tion, he was escorted up Pennsylvania Avenue in a hollow 
square of cavalry, and the utmost vigilance was exercised by 
Gen. Scott to prevent his being publicly assassinated on the 
way to the Capitol, to deliver his Inaugural Address from the 
east portico. These were terrible times; and, to add to his 
embarrassment, though unintentionally, Gen. Scott wrote a 



136 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


letter the day before the inauguration, (March 3d,) directed to 
Wm. H. Seward, in which he pictures out a dark and gloomy 
future. - If the Government resorted to force, two or three 
years of war would leave devastated provinces without future 
hope of reconciling the Southern people to their conquerors.” 
Viewing the future from this stand-point, Gen. Scott advised 
the incoming administration to say to the Southern States ? 
“Wayward sisters, depart in peace .”—Second vol., paqe 628, 
Scott’s Life. 

Such counsel, from so experienced a soldier and brave a man 
as Scott, would have staggered most men; but Mr. Lincoln pit¬ 
ted himself against all such weakness, and accepted war. The 
ideas of *76, and the accomplishments of ’87, were too sacred to 
be abandoned without a struggle. Through his patriotism and 
invincible courage, he rallied the nation to its own defence. 
After twenty months of wavering and doubtful conflict, the 
star of success growing dim, in one of those moments when 
hope gives way to despair, and death is sought as a refuge, he 
grasped and threw into the struggle the ideas of ’76. Though 
morally weakened by being used only as a war measure, yet, 
thus feebly touched, it electrified the nation. When the people 
heard above the din of battle the loud roar of the artillery of 
the colonial revolution, their patriotic enthusiasm commenced 
kindling to the skies. The evil political spirits of the present, 
and the apparitions of their kindred of the past, had to this 
time hung like an incubus around the President; but when he 
wrote “Freedom” across the front of his administration, they 
vanished before the brightness of the hour. In this elevated 
position, Moses-like, he learned the will of Heaven, and thus, 
through the following proclamation, gave it to the nation : 

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

Whereas , on the twenty-second day of September, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


137 


Proclamation was issued by the President of the United 
States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: 

“ That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held 
as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the 
people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United 
States, shall be, thenceforth, and forever free : and the 
Executive Government of the United States, including the 
military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and 
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or 
acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts 
they may make for their actual freedom. 

•“ That the Executive will, on the first day of January afore¬ 
said, b}^ proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, 
if any. in which the people thereof respectively shall then be 
in rebellion against the United States, and the fact that any 
State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith 
represented in the Congress of the Unit d States by members 
chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified 
voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the ab¬ 
sence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclu¬ 
sive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not 
then in rebellion against the United States.” 

Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the 
United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Corn- 
mander-in-Cliief of the Army and Navy of the United States 
in time of actual armed Rebellion against the authority, and 
government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary 
war measure for suppressing said Rebellion, do, on this first 
day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose 
so to do, publicly proclaim for the full period of one hundred 
days from the day of the first above-mentioned order, and de¬ 
signate, as the States and parts of States wherein the people 
thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the 
United States, the following, to wit: ARKANSAS, r lEXAS, 
LOUISIANA (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Palque- 
rnines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, 
Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and 
Orleans, including the City of Orleans, MISSISSIPPI, ALA¬ 
BAMA, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, 
NORTH CAROLINA, and VIRGINIA (except the forty- 
eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the 
counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth Cjty, 
York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Nor- 


138 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


folk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are, for the 
the present, left precisely as if this Proclamation were not 
issued. 

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, 
I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves with¬ 


in said designated States and parts of States, are, and hence¬ 
forward SHALL BE FREE ! And that the Executive Gov¬ 
ernment of the United States, including the Military and 
Naval Authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the 
freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, 
to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence, 
and I recommend to them that in all cases, when allowed, 
they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. 

And I further declare and make known, that such persons 
of suitable condition will be received into the armed service 
of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and 
other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, 
warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I in¬ 
voke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and 
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of Janu- 
Ti s 1 ary, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hun- 
*- * ^ dred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of 
the United States the eighty-seventh. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


By the President.— William H. Seward. 

Secretary of State. 


Various were the opinions entertained of the utility of the 
above Proclamation. Some compared it to the Pope’s bull 
against the comet. Many of the republican party despised it 
as a political document, but gave their assent to it as a war 
measure. But it soon became evident that it would live in 
history as the grandest achievement of his administration. So 
completely had it grown in favor with the people that, in a 
little over six months after it was issued, a Convention was 
called, in order that some marks of approval might be made 
manifest. With patriotic gratitude the people endorsed it, 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


139 


not only as a War Measure, but as an act of justice , and renom¬ 
inated its great and beloved author for a second term without 
a dissenting voice. 

The National Convention assembled at Baltimore on the 7th 
of June, 1864, and there nominated Abraham Lincoln for re- 
election as President, with Andrew Johnson as Vice President, 
and adopted and presented to the American people the follow¬ 
ing Platform : 

Resolved , That it is the highest duty of every American 
citizen to maintain against all their enemies the integrity of 
the Union, and the paramount authority of the Constitution 
and laws of the United States; and that, laying aside all dif¬ 
ferences of political opinion, we pledge ourselves as Union 
men, animated by a common sentiment, and aiming at a com¬ 
mon object, to do everything in our power to aid the Govern¬ 
ment in quelling by force of arms the rebellion now raging 
against its authority, and in bringing to the punishment due 
to their crimes the rebels and traitors arrayed against it. 

Resolved , That we approve the determination of the Gov¬ 
ernment of the United States not to compromise with rebels, 
nor to offer any terms of peace, except such as may be based 
upon an “unconditional surrender” of their hostility, and 
a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and 
laws of the United States ; and that we call upon the Govern¬ 
ment to maintain this position, and to prosecute the war with 
the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression of the 
rebellion, in full reliance upon the self-sacrifice, the patriotism, 
the heroic valor, and the undying devotion of the American 
people to their country and its free instituions. 

Resolved That, as Slavery was the cause, and now constitutes 
the strength of this rebellion, and as it must be always and 
everywhere hostile to the principles of Republican govern¬ 
ment, justice and the national safety demand its utter and 
complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic; and that 
we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which 
the government in its own defense, has aimed a death-blow at 
this gigantic evil. We are in favor furthermore, of such an 
amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in 
conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever 
prohibit, the existence of Slavery within the limits of the 
jurisdiction of the United States. 

Resolved , That the thanks of the American People are due 


140 


THE UNION CAMPAION. 


to the soldiers and sailors of the Army and Navy, who have 
periled their lives in defense of their country, and in vindica¬ 
tion of the honor of the flag ; that the nation owes to them 
some permanent recognition of their patriorism and valor, and 
ample and permanent provision for those of their survivors 
who have received disabling and honorable wounds in the 
service of the country ; and that the memories of those who 
have fallen in its defense shall be held in grateful and ever¬ 
lasting remembrance. 

Resolved, That we approve and applaud the practical wis¬ 
dom, the unselfish patriotism and unswerving fidelity to the 
Constitution and the principles of American liberty, with 
which Abraham Lincoln has discharged, under circumstances 
of unparalleled difficulty, the great duties and responsibilities 
of the presidential office; that we approve and endorse, as 
demanded by the emergency, and essential to the preservation 
of the nation ; and as within the Constitution, the measures 
and acts which he has adopted to defend the nation against 
its open and secret foes ; that we approve especially the Proc¬ 
lamation of Emancipation, and the employment as Union 
soldiers of men heretofore held in Slavery ; and that we have 
full confidence in his determination to carry these and all 
other constitutional measures essential to the salvation of the 
country into full and complete effect. 

Resolved , That we deem it essential to the general welfare 
that harmony should prevail in the National councils, and we 
regard as worthy of public confidence and official trust those 
only who cordially endorse the principles proclaimed in these 
resolutions, and which should characterize the administration 
of the Government. 

Resolved , That the Government owes to all men employed 
in its armies, without regard to distinction of color, the full 
protection of the laws of war ; and that any violation of these 
laws, or of the usages of civilized nations in the time of war 
by the Rebels now in arms, should be made the subject of full 
and prompt redress. 

Resolved , That the foreign immigration, which in the past 
has added so much to the wealth and development of resources 
and increase of power to this nation, the Asylum of the 
oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged 
by a liberal and just policy. 

Resolved , That we are in favor of the speedy construction 
of a railroad to the Pacific. 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


141 


Resolved , That the National faith, pledged for the redemp¬ 
tion of the Public Debt, must be kept inviolate ; and that for 
this purpose we recommend economy and rigid responsibility 
in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and just system of 
taxation ; that it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain 
the credit and promote the use of the National Currency. 

Resolved , That we approve the position taken by the Gov¬ 
ernment that the people of the United States never regarded 
with indifference the attempt of any European power to over¬ 
throw by force, or to supplant by fraud, the institutions of any 
Republican government on the western continent, and that 
they view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to the peace 
and independence of this our country, the efforts of any such 
power to obtain new footholds for monarchical governments, 
sustained by a foreign military force, in near proximity to the 
United States. 

The platform adopted at Philadelphia, June 18, 1856, with 
Fremont as candidate, set forth in the first resolution the 
principles of ’76, and at Chicago, in May, 1860, the same prin¬ 
ciples were reiterated in the second resolution of the Repub¬ 
lican Platform; and at Baltimore in 1864, in the third resolution 
Slavery is declared to be hostile to republican government, 
whilst the platforms of 1856 and 1860 declared against slavery 
extension, they did not propose to legally disturb it in the 
slaveholding States, but the Baltimore Convention was con¬ 
sistent. The statutes had become fundamentally changed by 
the action of the slave States themselves in rebelling. The 
third resolution declares, as so do the rebels, that Slavery was 
the cause of the Rebellion. The Proclamation is endorsed in 
the resolution, not only as a war measure , but as an act of 
justice, and the extirpation of slavery from the soil of the 
Republic is demanded. 

Public sentiment so completely endorsed the proclamation 
of freedom, that the Convention advanced with energy to the 
new position attained by the President. Many of his own 
party were opposed to enlisting liberated slaves in the Union 
army—but this policy was indorsed by the fifth resolution of 
the platform and that closed their mouths. 

In adopting this measure, Mr Lincoln showed great ability 


142 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


as the record of the 100,000 blacks now soldiers in the army 
of the Republic abundantly proves. Even the rebel General 
Lee, the ablest man engaged in the rebellion, in a letter, dated, 
C. S. Armies, Feb. 18th, 1805, to E. Barksdale, advocates the 
policy of arming the blacks, not only as necessary but expe¬ 
dient ; but the slaveholders of the Gulf States at first opposed 
him and refused the demands of the rebel chief. Slavery, 
the cause of the rebellion, had already become chronic in the 
Southern Confederacy. The Richmond Enquirer of February 
23d, 1865, claims that “ Virginia did not commence the rebel¬ 
lion ; neither did Tennessee, Missouri or Kentucky ; but the 
Gulf States swore the oath of success or universal destruction. 
This oath has been broken and they by whom the first blow 
was struck are the first to desert.” The above remarks were 
made on the defeat, by senators from the Gulf States, of the 
bill to arm the blacks, previously passed by the rebel house 
of representatives. The Enquires continues : “ Monday, the 
compact of mutual support was broken; the bill to appropriate 
the slaves so as to secure honorable existence, was defeated 
in the senate principally by senators from the Gulf States. 
Perhaps it would be well for the Gulf States to reconsider 
the vote. Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky will yet 
see that their people are not slaves in order that the incon¬ 
veniences of war may not be felt on the Congaree and the 
Tombigbee.” 

The Richmond Sentinel , February 3d, 1865, Davis’ organ, 
says: 

“The soldiers from Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia 
and Virginia have spoken in favor of arming the slaves. Gen. 
Lee has also requested that it should be done, the rebel house 
of representatives has taken affirmative action, but the senate 
is disappointing and delaying—are we to add, defeating.” 

Gov. Brown of Georgia about the same date discourses thus: 
“ In a measure, whatever may be our opinion of their normal 
condition of interests, we cannot expect them to perform deeds 
of heroism when fighting to continue the enslavement of their 
wives and children ; and it is not reasonable for us to demand 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


143 


it of them. Whenever we establish the fact that they are a 
military people we destroy our theory that they are unfit to 
be free. When we arm the slaves we abolish slavery.” 

On March 8, 1865, the rebel senate was forced to pass the 
following bill: 

The bill was then passed by yeas and nays as follows : 

Yeas— Messrs. Brown, Burnett, Caperton, Henry, Hunter, 
Oldham, Semmes of Louisiana, Sims of Kentucky, Watson—9. 

Nays— Messrs. Barnwell, Graham, Johnson of Georgia, 
Johnson of Missouri, Maxwell, Orr, West, Wigfall—8. 

On motion of Mr. Graham, the Senate resolved itself into 
executive session. 

The following is the bill to place negroes in the army, as it 
passed the Senate : 

A bill to Increase the Military Force of the Confederate States. 

The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact: 
That in order to provide additional forces to repel invasion, main¬ 
tain the right to possession of the Confederate States, secure their 
independence and preserve their institutions, the President be and 
he is hereby authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of 
slaves the service of such number of able-bodied men as he may 
deem expedient, for and during the war, to perform military ser¬ 
vice in whatever capacity he may direct. 

Sec. 2. That the General-in-Chief be authorized to organize the 
said slaves into companies, battalions, regiments and brigades, 
under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of War may 
prescribe, and to be commanded by such officers as the President 
may appoint. 

Sec. 3. That while employed in the service, the said troops shall 
receive the same rations, clothing and compensation as are allowed 
to other troops in the same branch of the service. 

Sec. 4. That if, under the previous sections of this act, the Pres¬ 
ident shall not be able to raise a sufficient number of troops to 
prosecute the war successfully, and maintain the sovereignty of the 
States and the independence of the Confederate States, then he is 
hereby authorized to call on each State, whenever he thinks it ex¬ 
pedient, for her quota of three hundred thousand troops, in addi¬ 
tion to those subject to military service under existing laws, or as 
many thereof as the President may deem necessary to be raised 
from such classes of the population, irrespective of color, in each 
State, as the proper authorities thereof may determine ; Provided, 


144 


TIIE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


that no more than 25 per cent, of the male slaves between the 
ages of 18 and 45 in any State shall be called for under the pro¬ 
visions of this act. 

Sec. 5. That nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize 
a change in the relation which the said slaves shall bear towards 
their owners, except by the consent of the owners and of the 
States in which they may reside, and in pursuance of the laws 
thereof. 

The same cause that produced the rupture in the Union, is 
now a source of strife between the slave-breeding and the 
slave-buying States. The border States having already lost 
all for the sake of slavery, now discover that the Gulf States 
are unwilling to make the same sacrifice. Independence, if it 
has to be acquired by abolition, is not wanted by the Gulf 
States. Mr. Hunter of Virginia, remarked in discussing the 
passage of the negro soldier bill in the rebel Congress : 

“ When we left the old government, I thought we had got 
rid forever of the slavery agitation, that we were entering a 
new confederacy of homogeneous States upon the agitation of 
the slavery question, which had become intolerable under the 
old Union, was to have no place; but to my surprise I find that 
this government assumes the power to arm the slaves, which 
involves also the power of emancipation, to the agitation of 
this question, the assumption of this power, I date the origin 
of this gloom which overspreads our people. * * * It is 

a clear claim of the central government to emancipate the 
slaves—if we are right in passing this measure we were wrong 
in denying to the old government the right to interfere with 
the institution of slavery, and to emancipate slaves ; besides if 
we offer slaves their freedom as a boon, we confess that we 
were insincere, were hypocritical in asserting that slavery 
was the best state for the negroes themselves. * * * * 

I consider the adoption of the measure as almost a virtual aban¬ 
donment of the principles of the contest.” 

Thus the reader can see the importance of Mr. Lincoln’s 
course-first freeing, then arming the slaves. Politically these 
measures have ground the Confederacy to powder. 

The Union party had followed Mr. Lincoln to an elevated 


THE UNION CAMPAIGN. 


145 


position: they had every advantage, in a moral sense, over their 
opponents, and could look down upon them revelling in their 
filthy vacillating political attire. 

The Union party fought the political battle fair and square. 
It had no secrets to hide, but trusted all to the intelligence 
and virtue of the American people ; its press and orators 
exposed the rottenness of their opponents; that the entire 
party was without one redeeming trait, and clearly demon¬ 
strated it to be only the northern and cowardly wing of the Re¬ 
bellion. All the best qualities of human nature were appealed 
to. As to authority, they held to our Government from the 
Lakes to the Gulf, and that Government to guarantee and pro¬ 
tect within its jurisdiction, without distinction of race or color 
the liberty of man . One emblem to represent it, and that the 
good old flag of our fathers, “ the star-spangled banner.” Men 
were constantly appealed to, to respect the rights of man, to 
act politically towards others as you would have others act 
towards you, to vindicate th^ national authority and honor, 
respect for the Constitution, and respect for even-handed jus¬ 
tice, a sacerdotal reverence for the illustrious dead who fell 
in defense of the Government and flag—with a high appre¬ 
ciation of the valiant services of the gallant officers and brave 
men who had been and were yet in their country's service. 
Everything that was elevating to an American citizen, every¬ 
thing that was calculated to swell the manly heart, and light 
up the human soul, with a perfect disregard of self, men acted 
reckless of present consequences—they acted for posterity 
This question had to be met some time, and they resolved to 
meet it then. Among the soldiers and sailors, all appeared to 
be animated with the spirit of patriotism and success ; they all 
knew that on them depended the salvation of their country— 
they achieved victory, and thank God the nation still lives. 
It has passed through a crisis more beset with peril than ever 
experienced before. Independence is the child of Washington 
—but Lincoln is the father of Freedom. 


10 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY 


OF THE 

AMERICAN UNION. 


Declaration of Independence, and War of the Revolution—Object of the 
League of 1778—The Constitution of 1789 ; Its adoption and defects— 
Presidential Elections—Party Names and Issues—Electoral Votes in 
full (1789 to 1864) from Washington to Lincoln. 

Governments at best, are but necessary evils. Established 
on the ruins of liberty, they are curses in disguise. For ages 
man has struggled with tyranny. Defeated one day, he re¬ 
news the conflict the next, until the struggle continues from 
father to son, from generation to generation. The tyranny of 
man is the bane of civilization ; its demands, no matter how 
unjust, like the yawning grave, can never be satisfied. The 
tyrant who wades through blood and slaughter to a throne, in 
order to make his yoke rest easy, flatters the weak side of 
human nature by making concessions to liberty, while his ig¬ 
norant subjects, forgetting he stole the cow, receive back the 
calf as a kingly favor. Men exalted to places of honor and 
trust by the popular will, frequently barter away the interests 
of their constituency to pacify the avarice of a restless and 
designing aristocracy. 

This should not be. Neither the pompous aristocrat or 
professional beggar has any special claims for legislative re¬ 
gard ; but Industry , Religion, Enterprise and Education, which 
are the life and salvation of the industrial middle classes, 
should receive the fostering care of the State. These all 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY, ETC. 


147 


harmonize with nature and the divine will, and are the bul¬ 
warks of civilization. Without them popular government 
would be only anarchy. They are the sentinels on the watch- 
towers of Freedom, the richest jewels of Republican civili¬ 
zation. A government sparkling all over with these Chris¬ 
tian diadems would be as fixed and lasting as the firmament, 
while its dazzling splendor would sparkle throughout all time. 
Providence had reserved its richest earthly inheritance as a 
place of refuge from the tyranny of kings. 

Here in America, was to be developed the Christian doc¬ 
trine of the brotherhood of man. The Anglo Saxon in 1620, 
with his ideas of liberty, landed at Plymouth Rock ; while 
the Norman, with his Feudalism, in 1607, had settled on the 
James. The Dutch, in 1609, with their peculiar ideas of lib¬ 
erty for the white man, settled on the Hudson. When these 
different colonies began to increase and spread over an ex¬ 
tended surface, necessity in government, as in everything 
else, became the mother of invention. In order more effect¬ 
ually to protect the Colonies against depredations from the 
Indian tribes, the Anglo Saxon descendants of the Pilgrims, 
inhabiting Massachusetts, Plymouth , Connecticut and New Ha¬ 
ven , while owing allegiance to the British Crown, in 164?, 
formed themselves into a League, styled the United Colonies of 
New England . The object of this association was self-protec¬ 
tion. It lasted upwards of forty years, and was the first idea 
of Union that our history gives any account of. This League 
was dissolved by King James in 1686. 

The next account we have of an effort to renew the League, 
was a Convention at Albany in 1722 ; then, again, on a more 
extended sc&le at the same place, in 1754. The dread by the 
mother country of a war with France, was what brought this 
Convention together. It was to devise means to protect Amer¬ 
ica, by making treaties with the Indian tribes to prevent 
them, if possible, from enlisting under the banner of the 
French. This Union was to embrace all the Colonies, from 
New Hampshire to Georgia; but disputes about boundaries 
ran so high that the League was too weak to stand up, and Dr. 


148 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


Franklin, in 1761, remarked that only some grievous tyranny 
could force a Union.— Kent's Historical Lectures, 1795. 

The Stamp Act of the British Government ordained that no 
sale, bond, note of hand, or other instrument of writing, shall 
be valid unless executed on paper bearing the stamp pre¬ 
scribed by the home government. This received the royal 
assent, March 23, 1765, and on the 7th October, same year, 
twenty-seven delegates met in New York to implore relief. 
This assemblage is known in history as the Congress of 1765. 
The assembly claimed that the right to tax the Colonies re¬ 
sided in the colonial Legislatures. The eloquence of Wm. 
Pitt and Lord Camden brought about the repeal of the Stamp 
Act in the British Parliament. But a new Ministry in 1767, 
succeeded in getting through the House of Commons a bill to 
tax the tea imported into the American Colonies, which re¬ 
ceived the royal assent. 

At this last imposition the feelings of the Colonies began 
to grow hot. Lord North was now at the head of affairs, 
and he determined to show them no leniency. Enthusiastic 
meetings were held in Boston, Mass., in the latter part of the 
year 1769, which foreshadowed the coming struggle. 

* In 1620 slavery had been introduced into Virginia by the 
Dutch, and, like the small-pox, it soon spread throughout the 
Colonies. One hundred and thirty years after, the Boston 
Gazette , of Tuesday, Nov. 20th, 1750, contained the following 
advertisement. The paper is now in possession of William 
C. Nell, Esq .—Black Man, by Brown , page 107. 

ADVERTISEMENT. 

“ Ran away from his master, William Browne, Farmingham, 
on the 30th of September last, a mulatto fellow about 27 years 
of age, named Crispus , well set, six feet two inches high, 
short curled hair, knees nearer together than common, had on 
a light-colored bearskin coat, brown fustian jacket, buckskin 
breeches, blue yarn stockings, and checked shirt. Whoever 
will take up said runaway, and convey to his above said 
master, at Farmingham, shall have ten pounds, old tenor re¬ 
ward, and all necessary charges paid.” 

Twenty years after the foregoing advertisement appeared, 


AMERICAN UNION. 


149 


the fires of the Revolution began to burn. British troops 
were being concentrated in Boston, to extinguish the flame 
with patriotic blood. On the 5th of March, 1770, Captain 
Preston, with a body of red coats, tried to preserve order. 
At Dock Square and the Custom House, large crowds were to 
be seen throughout the day, eager to take part in the coming 
contest. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the shad¬ 
ows of the night, so big with fate, had already approached. 
The lamps in Dock Square were lit, and threw their light in 
the angry faces of the discontented crowd, who only waited 
to be led against the British troops. A part of Captain Pres¬ 
ton’s company, while making their way from the Custom House, 
were met by the crowd from Dock Square, headed by the 
black man, the slave , Crispus Attucks, who, with a shout of 
defiance, cried : “Let us drive these rebels away ; they have 
no business here.” The crowd followed their enthusiastic 
leader, when the soldiers under Preston appeared to give 
way. Attucks, seeing this, became more daring, urging his 
followers not to be afraid, but to come on, “ They dare not 
shoot; we’ll drive them out of Boston.” These were the last 
words heard from his lips. Two balls, from British muskets, 
pierced his sable breast. The sharp crack of the musket 
drowned his patriotic voice, and Crispus Attucks , the runaway 
slave, became the first martyr to American liberty. Thus 
was inaugurated the Revolution, which took the brightest 
jewel from the British Crown. There was force in the re¬ 
mark of the Earl of Shelburne, when, in his reply to the Duke 
of Richmond, he said : “ The sun of Great Britain will set 
whenever she acknoidedges the Independence of America. 

The flames of discontent began to increase after the mas¬ 
sacre of the 5th of March, 1770, The tea was thrown over¬ 
board in Boston harbor, December 16th, 1773 ; on the 31st of 
March, 1774, the Boston Port Bill was passed ; on September 
4th, of the same year, the Continental Congress assembled at 
Philadelphia ; on the 19th of April, 1775, the battle of Lex¬ 
ington was fought—American loss, 84; British, 245 ; May 
10th, the Provincials took Ticonderoga. 


150 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


*The colonies had not yet chosen a Commander-in-chief, and 
it was while in session in Philadelphia, on June 15th, 1775, 
that George Washington was nominated, by Thomas Johnson, 
of Maryland, and was unanimously’ chosen. Washington 
owed his appointment to the New England delegation, headed 
by John Adams.— Statesman's Manual , vol. I, page 55. 

Four days after his appointment Washington received his 
Commission, and on the 20th of June he left Philadelphia to 
join the Continental army, at Cambridge, near Boston, Mass. 
The battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17th, 1775, was fought be¬ 
fore Washington arrived in Massachusetts. Prescott was the 
American commander ; his loss was 453. British commanded 
by Howe, loss 1054. On July 2d, Washington arrived at Cam¬ 
bridge, and took command of the army. All the foregoing 
engagements were fought before his arrival. General Mont¬ 
gomery was master of Montreal, and Col. Arnold was organ¬ 
izing, at Newburyport, a company of one thousand men to 
march on Quebec. Among his band of patriots were many 
bold and daring men, one of the most conspicuous of whom 
was Aaron Burr , a lad of great promise, not yet twenty years 
of age. He came from Litchfield, Connecticut, where he had 
for a short time been reading law, with Mr. Tappin Reeve. 
On the 20th of September, 1775, Col. Arnold, with eleven 
hundred men, started from Newburyport on the intended ex¬ 
pedition. In a few days this army was beyond the outposts 
of Civilization, and struggling through the great wilderness 
on its way to Quebec. For thirty-two days they saw nro 
trace of a human being. Starvation came, and they were 
forced to live upon dogs, reptiles, and even devoured the 
leather of their shoes and cartridge-boxes. After marching 
600 miles through a lonely wilderness, and losing one-half of 
his army, just fifty days after leaving Newburyport, Col. Ar¬ 
nold arrived in sight of the heights of Quebec. Young Burr 
was selected by his commander to communicate the news of 
his arrival to General Montgomery, at Montreal—distance 120 
miles. Knowing that the French were not satisfied with Eng¬ 
lish rule, Burr exhibited great tact in assuming the garb of a 


AMERICAN UNION. 


151 


young Catholic Priest. In this manner, with his knowledge 
of Latin, he was enabled to deceive priests and people. He 
was conducted by his guide from one religious family to an¬ 
other. At Three Rivers suspicion became aroused, and the 
guide, fearing the consequences, refused to proceed. Burr 
was concealed for three days in a convent at Three Rivers, at 
the end of which time the guide, without further trouble, 
conducted him to Montreal. The gallant Irishman, Mont¬ 
gomery, was so delighted with Burr that he placed him on his 
staff, as general’s aid-de-camp, with the rank of captain. It 
was now the month of November, and the ground was cov¬ 
ered with snow; yet Montgomery set out with 300 men, him¬ 
self at their head, and reached Arnold’s camp, before Quebec, 
in the early part of December. 

On the 20th of the month all was ready, and on the 31st, 
amid the chilling ice and northeasterly snow storm, which 
served to drive even animals created for these climes 
to their accustomed retreats, leaving the patriotic band 
unprotected in the dead of night, to brave the dreadful 
weather. Just before the day dawned Montgomery, with 
Burr at his side, moved to the attack. As the column began 
to move Montgomery cried, “ Push on , brave boys, Quebec is 
ours!” The column advanced up to within forty paces of the 
block house. At first, the British troops, mostly composed of 
sailors and militia, fled in terror from the guns. The Ameri¬ 
can army, not understanding how matters stood, was slow to 
move, when a sailor, to discover the reason, ventured back. 
He saw through the port holes of the block house the ad¬ 
vancing party, and turned to run. Before leaving, his dusky 
form stood trembling, as if chained by demons to the spot to 
wait till fate came up. He fired the grape-charged 12-pound 
cannon, and the great Montgomery fell, who, with two of his 
aids and an orderly sergeant, never again saw the light of the 
sun. The column, aware of the loss, halted and wavered. 
Burr made an effort to rally the men, but the enemy opened 
fire, and it could not be done. A panic seized them, and they 
sought safety in flight. Stretched on the ground, in his 


152 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


snowy shroud, lay the majestic form of Montgomery. Burr 
seized and shouldered up his glorious load, and, amid snow 
knee deep, ran with it down the gorge—the enemy, in hot 
pursuit. The weight was too great, and little Burr was com¬ 
pelled to drop his priceless treasure in the snow. 

The American force remained in Canada, annoying the gar¬ 
rison at Quebec till the spring of 1776, when they had to 
retire before the new army under Burgoyne. In the mean¬ 
time, on the 17th of March, the British’ evacuated Boston. 
General Washington had gathered about 20,000 men, and on 
the 2d of March commenced a heavy cannonading on the 
British lines. General Howe had made arrangements in Feb¬ 
ruary to evacuate. His army was about 10,000 strong, with 
about 1,000 Tories. In seventy-eight ships and transports 
they sailed for Halifax. General Washington, fearing Howe 
had sailed for New York, immediately directed the army to 
march. The Legislature of Massachusetts, and the Continen¬ 
tal Congress, both congratulated Washington on the glorious 
termination of the siege of Boston. 

The military operations thus far had been in favor of the 
colonies, yet no definite mould had been prepared in which 
to cast the new government; and it was not until the 4th day 
of July, 1776, that the foundation was laid for the great Re¬ 
public. The struggle of arms was still progressing. The bat¬ 
tle of Flatbush, L. I., was fought August 12th, 1776 ; British, 
Howe, loss 400; American, Putnam and Sullivan, 2,000. 
White Plains, October 28th, 1776 ; American, Washington, 
300 to 400 ; British, Howe, 300 to 400. Trenton , December 
25th, 1776; American, Washington, 9; British, Raid, 1000. 
Princeton, Jan. 3d, 1777 ; American, Washington, 100 ; Brit¬ 
ish, Mawhood, 400. Bennington, Aug. 16th, 1777; American, 
Stark, 100 ; British, Baum and Breman, 600. Brandywine, 
Sept. 11th, 1777 ; British, Howe, 500 ; American, Washington, 
1,000. Germantoivn, Oct. 4th, 1777 ; British, Howe, 600 ; 
American, Washington, 1,200. Stilhvater, October 17th, 1777 ; 
American, Gates, 350 ; British, Burgoyne, 600, and 5,752 men 


AMERICAN UNION. 


153 


surrendered. Monmouth, June 25th, 1778 ; American, Wash¬ 
ington, 230 ; British, Clinton, 400 ; Rhode Island , Aug. 29th, 
1778; American, Sullivan, 211; British, Pigott. 260. Briar 
Creek , March 30th, 1779; British, Prevost, 16 ; American, 
Ash, 300. Stony Point , July 15th, 1779 ; American, Wayne, 
100 ; British, 600. Camden , August 16, 1780 ; British, Corn¬ 
wallis, 375 ; American, Gates, 720. Cowpens. Jan. 17th, 1781 ; 
American, Morgan, 72; British, Tarleton, 800. Guilford Court 
House , March 15th, 1781 ; American, Greene, 400 ; British, 
Cornwallis, 523. Eutaiv Springs, September 8th, 1781 ; Amer¬ 
ican, Greene, 555 ; British, Stewart, 1,000. 

The war was brought to a close by the surrender, at York- 
town, of Cornwallis, and 7,073 British soldiers, to Gen. Wash¬ 
ington, October 19th, 1781. 

Benedict Arnold, who organized the force and conducted 
the campaign against Quebec, planned the capture of Ticon- 
deroga, and entered the fort side by side with Ethan Allen. 
Brave when in command of the fleet on the lakes, and 
at Behemi’s Heights, Oct. 7th, 1777, in front of his column, 
cheered and urged on his men, receiving a severe wound in 
his leg. He married a Miss Shippen, of Philadelphia, allied 
by kindred with royalty, and a great pet of the British offi¬ 
cers. No doubt his connection with this woman proved his 
ruin ; but she stuck to him through every adversity, and 
shared with him the fate of his treason and disgrace. At West 
Point, with Andre and Sir Henry Clinton, he consummated 
his infamy, and published a letter in New York, advising the 
people to return to their loyalty to the British Crown. He 
was born in Norwich, Connecticut, Jan. 3d, 1740, and died, an 
outcast, in London, June 14th, 1801, in the 61st year of his age. 

The expense of the Revolution, estimated in specie, was 
$135,193,702 90. The paper money, called Continental, was first 
issued in 1775 ; and in 1777 it began to depreciate in value. Its 
decline was rapid. In sixyears,from 1775 to 1781, $362,547,037 05 
had been issued. Its discount for specie, Jan. 1st, 1777, was 
only five per cent; one year from that date, 210 per cent; 
Jan. 1778 it reached 534; in 1779, 2,493 ; Jan. 1st, 1780, 7,300. 


154 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


In February, 1781, it took $7,500 in Continental money to pur¬ 
chase $100 in specie ; and in March it was worthless. 

Provisional Articles of peace were signed in Paris, Nov. 30, 
1782, by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and 
Henry Lusecnes, on the part of the United States, and Mr. 
Fitz Herbert and Mr. Oswald, on the part of Great Britain. 
The definite Treaty was signed September 30th, 1783 ; after 
which it was officially proclaimed by Congress, and announced 
by Washington to the army, October 18, 1783, wherein was 
declared the Independence of the United States. It was first 
acknowledged by France ; then by Holland, on the 19th of 
April, 1782 ; by Sweden, Feb. 5th, 1782 ; by Denmark, Feb. 
25th, 1782 ; by Spain, March 24th, same year ; by Russia in 
July, 1783 ; and Prussia in 1785. 

The entire population of the thirteen Colonies, in 1790, was 
3,043,000. During the trying times of the Revolution, and in 
order to assist in achieving American Independence, Articles 
of Confederation were adopted at Philadelphia in 1778. This 
League adopted United States of America as the style of the 
Confederacy. It was simply a Union for defence ; as the 2d 
Article asserts that each State retains its sovereignty : not a 
new government, but an agreement between old ones for gen¬ 
eral protection against foreign powers. They took the model 
from the Batavian and Helvetic Confederacies. It lasted only 
ten years, and served as a temporary preservation of society ; 
but the wise saw that it could not be durable. Witnout suffi¬ 
cient power for self-protection, foreign powers looked upon it 
with contempt. The disputes of the States, and bitter wrang¬ 
ling in their sovereign capacity about what was to be done 
with the Crown Lands, caused them to view the League with 
a jealous eye. Maryland refused to sign the Articles of Con¬ 
federation until March 1st, 1781, four years and four months 
after CoDgress had declared their adoption was essential to 
union , liberty, and safety. Benjamin Franklin saw, better than 
any other man at the time, the incohesiveness of rival sov¬ 
ereignties. They had already caused combinations preventing 
the collection of taxes, refusing protection to commerce, pro- 


AMERICAN UNION. 


155 


claiming disunion, and threatening insurrection. From 1643 
to 1778 all efforts of the Colonies to continue united, after the 
dangers calling them together had passed, were ineffectual; 
and this last effort at harmonizing rival sovereignties, under 
the Articles of Confederation, after less than ten years of pre¬ 
carious existence, sickened and died of the same malady. 

Hamilton, Madison, and Jay saw the defects. Washington 
himself was pained to see that after the sacrifices he and liis 
gallant army had made on the many bloody battle-fields, 
through a seven years* war, to gain independence, his country, 
which had emblazoned on its victorious banner the sacred 
rights of human nature, was now engaged in quarreling over 
supposed rights of petty sovereignties , and refusing to do justice 
to the surviving patriots of the Revolution. The Revolution¬ 
ary period, which should date from the 5th of November, 
1770, lasted to the first of the same month, 1781. The League, 
which terminated March 4, 1789, was now to be followed by 
the formation of a National Government . The Union itself was 
in the agonies of death. 

To remedy the evils that were every day accumulating, a 
Convention was called to meet at Annapolis, Md., in Septem¬ 
ber, 1786. Five States only sent delegates. They adjourned 
to meet delegates from all the States, in Philadelphia, on the 
second Monday of May, 1787. 

State sovereignty had already denied and shoved aside the 
truths of the Declaration of Independence, and broken the 
bond of Union established in 1778. The corpse was there, 
but its spirit had fled. The address adopted by the Annapolis 
Convention, and addressed to the Legislatures of the different 
States, represented in the Convention, spoke of the dangers 
which threatened them, as follows : “ They are, however, of a 
nature so serious, as, in the view of your Commissioners, renders 
the situation of the United States delicate and critical, calling 
for an exertion of the united virtue and wisdom of all the 
members of the Confederacy.” 

The Convention assembling at Philadelphia was itself 
the creation of State sovereignty, appointed by the Legis- 


156 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


latures of the different States. They did not emanate from 
the people, but .from the same source as did the members that 
formed the League of 1778 ; and many of the members wanted 
to substitute for the Constitution the old Articles of Confed¬ 
eration, with additional power to Congress. 

Some of the delegates were determined that the new gov¬ 
ernment should, like the Declaration of Independence, emanate 
directly from the people, and that State sovereignty, that had 
proved the death of all previous Unions, should not form the 
basis of this now about to be established. Washington was 
chosen president, and the Convention continued in session 
about four months. 

Thus the Federalists, to get rid of State sovereignty, and 
establish a strong government, set forth in the preamble to 
the Constitution, that “ We, the people of the United States, in 
order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure do¬ 
mestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the 
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the 
United States of America . 

The Anti-Federalists and States’ Rights party contended 
that the preamble should read : “ We, the States of New Jer¬ 
sey, Virginia, South Carolina, dec., in order to form a more per¬ 
fect Union,” &c. 

Judicial Constructions. —“ The Constitution of the United 
States was ordained and established, not by the United States 
in their sovereign capacity, but, as the preamble declares, by 
the people of the United States.”— History and Analysis of the 
Constitution, by Towle, page 39. 

The Federalists gained a great point in announcing that the 
instrument had been made by the people for the States. Their 
opponents wanted it understood that it was made by the 
States for the people. 

But, notwithstanding the important position gained by the 
Federalists in the start, every step of advance was hotly con¬ 
tested by their opponents, who forced a compromise. The 
result was that many of the existing evils served as materials, 


AMERICAN UNION. 


157 


which, when placed together, destroyed the beauty and dura¬ 
bility of the structure. Being the creature of compromise, 
its existence could not survive the material from which it was 
made. 

Dates of its Ratification by the Thirteen Old States . 

Delaware, Dec. 7, 1787 ; Pennsylvania, Dec. 12, 1787 ; New 
Jersey, Dec. 18, 1787 ; Georgia, Jan. 2, 1788 ; Connecticut, 
Jan. 9. 1788; Massachusetts, Feb. 6, 1788; Maryland, April 
28, 1788 ; South Carolina, May 28, 1788 ; New Hampshire, 
June 21, 1788 ; Virginia, June 26, 1788 ; New York, July 26, 
1788 ; North Carolina, Nov. 21, 1789 ; Rhode Island, May 29, 
1790. 

Aaron Burr predicted, at the time, that it would not last 
fifty years. In after times he said, “ I was mistaken ; it 
will eventually last longer than that. But I was mistaken 
only in point of time ; the crash will come, but not quite so 
soon as I thought.”— Parton 7 s Life of Burr, page 172. 

Burr, whatever faults he had, was clear headed. It lasted 
just twenty-four years longer than he first predicted. It 
ceased to preserve the peace of the country in 1861, and was 
shut out from performing its functions over more than half of 
the national domain for the term of four years. The Nation 
has preserved, by the sword, all its organic virtues , while its 
anti-republican features must forever remain blotted out by 
the blood shed to preserve it. 

While the Federal party, headed by Washington, Hamilton, 
and Madison, celebrated its adoption with joy, the other party 
(Anti-Federals) viewed it as a calamity. A Federal procession 
in Providence, Rhode Island, was stopped and compelled to 
omit all reference to the Constitution in its celebrating pro¬ 
gramme. In Albany, N. Y., the Constitution was publicly 
burned in the streets. In Poughkeepsie, Greenleaf's Political 
Register was destroyed by a mob because it opposed the Con¬ 
stitution and vilified its supporters. Charges of bribery and 
fraud were everywhere heard, with threats of an immediate 
dissolution of the Union. Disputes about territorial jurisdic- 


158 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


tion, and boundaries between the States, and between them 
and the United States, formed a leading element of discord, 
and helped to bring about the wretched condition of the 
country. 

This question, that had done so much to make disaffection 
under the League, was happily settled by ceding all the Ter¬ 
ritories belonging to the several States to the General Gov¬ 
ernment, and is known as the Ordinance of 1787. It was 
passed two months and four days before the adoption of the 
Constitution. 

Thirteen sovereignties, with an organized militia, and all 
the paraphernalia of independent authority, like jealous 
women, are always on the alert. 

The right to hold slaves was left to the States. The right 
to give capital thus invested in human flesh and blood a repre¬ 
sentation in Congress, while that invested in lands, tenements, 
and merchandize, was denied the same advantage, proved to 
be the deadly weapon which our fathers left in the temple. 
It has long been in dispute; and at last was seized by the 
conspirators, and used with such desperation to destroy the 
mighty fabric, the American Union. 

Thomas Jefferson was ambassador to France from 1785 to 
1789, and did not assist in forming the Constitution. Wash¬ 
ington was selected by the State Legislatures as a candidate 
for President, and John Adams as a candidate for Vice Presi¬ 
dent, both strong Federalists. Only ten States participated 
in the Presidential election. New York, North Carolina, and 
Rhode Island did not ratify the Constitution in time to vote 
for President in 1789. Seven candidates ran, but received but 
little support. Washington and Adams were triumphantly 
elected. The seat of government was at this time in the city 
of New York; old Federal Hall, corner of Nassau and Wall 
streets, where the Treasury building now stands, was the place 
of meeting. On the 30th of April, 1789, Washington was 
sworn in by Robert R. Livingston, who, at the close of the 
ceremony, exclaimed aloud, “Long live George Washington, 
President of the United States. This harmless declaration 


AMERICAN UNION. 


159 


was caught up by the Anti-Federalists, and construed to inti¬ 
mate a desire on the part of the Federalists to make Washing¬ 
ton King. 

During his first term the Constitution, that had been so 
lately opposed, was growing in favor, and the Anti-Federal 
party becoming unpopular. They had become odious as Anti- 
Federalists, and, at the election of 1793, called themselves Re¬ 
publicans. They had strong affinities towards the French 
Revolutionists, as the change in their name indicated. 

Hamilton, who was an able man and a strong Federalist, 
was represented to have a high opinion of the British system, 
or what Burke called the British Constitution. This supposed 
affinity of leading Federalists with British institutions told 
hard against the party, and Washington’s second term was a 
stormy one. Old opponents of the Federal party, by denounc¬ 
ing it as the party of monarchy, had acquired considerable 
strength under their new name. Washington issued two 
proclamations in August and September, 1794, to warn the 
whisky insurrectionists of Western Pennsylvania (Washington 
and Allegheny counties.) This arrayed against him the whisky 
boys generally, and it was with difficulty that many of the 
most important measures of the administration were carried. 
The average annual expense of his administration was 
$1,986,588. The seat of government was now in Phila¬ 
delphia. 

Adams, the Federalist, was elected as Washington’s suc¬ 
cessor in 1797, but with only three majority over Jefferson, 
the Republican, who became the Vice President. Mr. Adams, 
though absent when the Constitution was made, and first see¬ 
ing it in a foreign country, said : “ It was not then , nor has it 
been since, any objection, in my mind, that the Executive and Sen¬ 
ate were not more permanent—Inaugural Address, March 4, 
1797. During his administration there were precautionary 
measures taken to meet a French war. The alien and sedition 
laws were passed by Congress in the summer of 1798. The 
alien law empowered the President to order aliens who were 
supposed to be in conspiracy against the United States to de- 



160 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


part from its territories. The sedition law, it was claimed, 
restricted the liberty of speech and the press. With these 
unpopular measures, and disaffection among his Cabinet offi¬ 
cers, Hamilton came out against him, and threw his influence 
in favor of Pinckney. This, with other unfortunate combina¬ 
tions, secured his defeat for a second term. 

Bradford’s History remarks : “ By the prudent and pacific, 
yet firm and decided measures of the Federal Government 
for twelve years, the character of the United States had be¬ 
come highly respectable among the greatest statesmen of Eu¬ 
rope. Its policy exhibited a happy union of energy and mag¬ 
nanimity, and it was respected alike for its wisdom and power. 
The nation was placed in a commanding attitude of defence, 
while liberty, peace, and improvement were everywhere wit¬ 
nessed within its jurisdiction. Public credit had been fully 
established, and able and faithful men had been selected for 
public agents—men whose patriotism had been proved by 
eight years service devoted to their country’s welfare.” 

The Republican party, which had so dreaded centralization 
and monarchy, became tired of the old system of State Legis¬ 
latures indicating Presidential candidates. They snatched this 
small perquisite, and introduced, in Philadelphia, in 1800, the 
aristocratic system of nominating Presidential candidates by 
Congressional caucus. 87 Representatives and 9 Senators thus 
met and nominated Jefferson for President and Aaron Burr 
for Vice President. Thus the party that so much dreaded 
Federal power and centralization was the first to use it to dic¬ 
tate to the States Presidential candidates. The election re¬ 
sulted in favor of the caucus nomination. Jefferson and Burr 
had each 73 electoral votes. Adams, the Federalist candidate, 
had only 65, and was beaten. The House of Representatives 
continued to ballot from February 11th to the 17 th (six da vs) 
to determine whether Jefferson or Burr should be President. 
This bold attempt by a party in the House of Representatives 
to counteract and resist the clearly expressed will of the peo 
pie led to the adoption of this amendment: “ The time for the 
meeting of the electors is the first Wednesday in December, 


AMERICAN UNION. 


161 


and the time for counting the votes is the second Wednesday 
in February.”—1 Stat. 239. 

Many of the Federalists went over to the support of Burr, 
believing that more might be expected in that direction than 
from Jefferson. Burr would have secured the election with¬ 
out any effort on his part, if it had not been for Hamilton op¬ 
posing him. He might have secured it, even against Hamil¬ 
ton's influence, if he had went into the contest himself, but he 
remained at Albany all the time during the balloting, and 
there does not remain any evidence that he ever solicited a 
single vote. He was charged with intriguing to secure the 
votes of New Jersey, Vermont, and Bhode Island. Matthew 
Lyon declared that John Brown, of Rhode Island, urged him 
to vote for Colonel Burr, using these words : “ What is it you 
want, Colonel Lyon ? Is it office ? Is it money ? Say what 
you want, and you shall have it.” But Judge Cooper, in a let¬ 
ter to Mr. Morris, February 12, declares : “ Had Burr done 
anything for himself, he would long ere this have been Presi¬ 
dent.”— Parton's Life of Burr , p. 289. 

Colonel Burr, on the 16th of December, 1800, addressed a 
letter to Gen. S. Smith, of Baltimore, then a member of the 
House of Representatives, in which he disclaimed all compe¬ 
tition with Jefferson : “ As to my friends,” he says, “ they 
would dishonor my views and insult n^feelings by a suspicion 
that I would submit to be instrumental in counteracting the 
rules and expectations of the United States.”— Statesman's 
Manual , page 313. 

It was Jefferson's enemies, and not Aaron Burr that tried 
to defeat the will of the nation. 

The National Government had now been moved from Phil¬ 
adelphia to Washington. In 1796 there had sprung up in the 
West and South-west a party which favored separation of that 
Territory from the Union. Among the most prominent mem¬ 
bers was Gen. Wilkinson, the Commander-in-chief of the 
United States army, and Daniel Clark, a very wealthy mer¬ 
chant of New Orleans, and father of Mrs. Gaines. He had 
amassed a large fortune, for which his daughter has so long 

11 


162 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


contended in the courts. When Jefferson came into office he 
was in the 58th year of his age. His election had been se¬ 
cured by bitter party strife. There were, at this period, pub¬ 
lished in the United States, about 180 newspapers, controlled 
mostly by aliens. The reaction in the tone of the press against 
Mr. Adams, on account of the alien and sedition laws, was 
like an avalanche. 

Most of the officers of the General Government had received 
their appointment from Washington. Mr. Adams removed 
scarcely any during his term of office. Mr. Jefferson began 
his administration under these peculiar circumstances, and 
commenced to turn out Federalists and put Republicans in 
their places. This soon had the effect of making speedy con¬ 
versions of Federal office-holders, who suddenly became Re¬ 
publicans for the sake of office. 

In 1795, Spain had granted the right to the United States 
of making New Orleans a place of deposit for three years, 
with an agreement to renew in 1802. The Spanish Intendant 
declared, by proclamation, that the right no longer existed. 
This caused a furore of excitement in the Western States, 
and along the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries. 
Congress was beset with petitions of grievances. The ex¬ 
citement was brought to its full height in December, 1802, 
when Jefferson, in his annual message, first communicated to 
Congress that Spain had ceded Louisiana to France. A pecu¬ 
liar combination of circumstances surrounded this Louisiana 
question. Few of the statesmen at that time thought it politic 
to enlarge the area of the national domain. It was the need 
of a free outlet to our commerce that influenced the adminis¬ 
tration. Livingston, our Minister at Paris, advised the seizure 
of New Orleans by force, as he thought it could never be ac¬ 
quired by treaty. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was then Consul of France, and his 
country was about embarking in a war with England. It was 
made known to him that if this arrangement of ceding New 
Orleans was not carried out, the United States would be 
forced to make an alliance with Great Britain. When this 


AMERICAN UNION. 


163 


was understood, Napoleon ordered the Marquis de Marbois 
to negotiate with the American Minister. They, who were 
only negotiating for New Orleans and its surroundings, and 
the right to navigate the river, were surprised when the Mar¬ 
quis de Marbois told them he was ready to treat for Louisiana. 
The Treaty was concluded April 30, 1803, and signed by the 
Ministers, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe, on the part of the 
United States, and the Marquis de Marbois on the part of 
France, four days afterwards. The price paid by the Ameri¬ 
can Government was $15,000,000. 

Napoleon remarked : “ This accession of territory strengthens 
forever the power of the United States, and I have just given to 
England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her 
pride.” The area of the country ceded was estimated to ex¬ 
ceed a million square miles. The inhabitants were mostly In¬ 
dians, except about 90,000 French and their descendants, 
Spanish, English, Germans, and Americans, owning about 40,- 
000 slaves. Hostilities between England and France com¬ 
menced on the 22d of May, 1803. On that very day Bonaparte, 
without waiting for the United States, ratified the Louisiana 
Treaty. 

Captains Lewis and Clarke were sent on an expedition to 
the new Territories. On the 14th of May, 1804, they left the 
banks of the Mississippi. The party consisted of about thirty 
persons, and were absent two years and three months. 

The excitement attending Jefferson's first election was 
sought as a pretext to amend the Constitution, so as to desig¬ 
nate which person was voted for as President, and which as 
Vice President. The Federal party opposed it, alleging that 
the Constitution contemplated that two persons equally qual¬ 
ified for the office of Chief Magistrate should be voted for. 
But the amendment was agreed to by the votes of two-thirds 
of the members of Congress, and was ratified by the Legis¬ 
latures of three-fourths of the States. Massachusetts, Dela¬ 
ware and Connecticut disapproved of the change. It forms 
the 12th Article of the amendments to the Constitution. 

Aaron Burr, Vice President, who had produced so much ex. 


164 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


citement at the outset of Jefferson's administration, had been 
goaded into a quarrel by Alexander Hamilton. Burr was not 
a vicious man, but his antagonist was unscrupulous in the 
means he used to defeat an adversary. Burr sent a challenge 
to Hamilton. It was accepted ; and the duel was fought July 
11, 1804, on the heights of Weehawken, New Jersey. Ham¬ 
ilton fell at the first fire. From this day forward, vituperation 
and calumny followed the name of Aaron Burr. 

Jefferson's first term being very popular with the people, 
he was re-nominated for a second term. Vice President Burr, 
having lost the confidence of the Republican leaders, was 
shoved aside, and George Clinton, of New York, was placed 
on the ticket. Pinckney, of South Carolina, for President, 
and Rufus King, of New York, for Vice President, were the 
Federal candidates. The people sustained Jefferson's admin¬ 
istration, and he was triumphantly re-elected. The caucus 
system, that had been introduced by the Republican leaders 
for nominating candidates for President and Vice President, 
was now used by them to control Congress. The most 
important measures had previously been agreed upon by the 
Republican members in private caucus, before they came be¬ 
fore that body. An effort was made by Jefferson, in the 
latter part of his first term, and the commencement of his 
second, in 1805, to purchase Florida from Spain, but it did 
not succeed. Efforts were renewed in 1817, and finally car¬ 
ried to a successful termination on February 19, 1821. 

It was in the latter half of the year 1805, that Aaron Burr, 
chagrined at the bad treatment he had received at the hands 
of Federal and Republican politicians, which had now been 
renewed with great effect on account of his duel with Hamil¬ 
ton, charged the monopolizing of all the Federal offices by 
the politicians of Virginia and New England. His enemies 
charged him with creating sectional feeling, and said this was 
seized on by Burr and his associates as a pretext for forming 
a great-Southwestern confederacy or kingdom. 

Burr arrived in New Orleans on the 25th of June, 1805, 
sixty-seven days from the time he left Philadelphia. General 


AMERICAN UNION. 


165 


Wilkinson had given him a letter to Mr. Clark, who had al¬ 
ready made a voyage to Vera Cruz, Mexico, to spy out the 
land. Burr remained in New Orleans about three weeks, ar¬ 
ranging with Mr. Clark. He left there in July, and on the 
6th of August reached Nashville, Tennessee, and domiciled 
one week with Andrew Jackson. 

The feeling against the Spanish was very great, and adven¬ 
turers from Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Car- 
olinas, were all to be enriched by the plunder of Spanish 
countries west of the Mississippi river This glittering bribe, 
his enemies said, was held out as an inducement for the West¬ 
ern States to separate from the Union. New Orleans, they 
said, was to be the seat of government or empire. 

Burr purchased 400,000 acres of land on the banks of the 
Washita river, a branch of the Red river, for $40,000, although 
he never paid but $5,000. This was to furnish a place of re- 
dezvous for all the chosen spirits engaged in the enterprise 
to assemble and fortify. Another rendezvous was at Blenner- 
hasset’s Island, on the Ohio, a few miles below Marietta. This 
island was named after its occupant, an Irish gentleman, who, 
with a good-natured wife, had made a home in this romantic 
spot. About 500, in all, knew of Burr’s plans, and this island 
became a rendezvous for many of the adventurers, until they 
eat Blennerhasset out of house and home. Burr’s plans were 
for Blennerhasset to get what men he could together, and 
float down the Ohio in boats building for the purpose at Ma¬ 
rietta, while he and his Tennessee friends would descend the 
Cumberland. But as the time approached Burr was not sus¬ 
tained (perhaps betrayed is the better word) by his leading 
associates. Wilkinson forsook him, and sent Lieutenant Smith 
with a message to President Jefferson. He left camp, at New 
Orleans, October 21, 1806, and delivered the despatches to 
the President, in Washington, on the 25th of November, and 
on the 27th Jefferson issued his proclamation, which created 
intense excitement. Burr’s name was not mentioned in the 
proclamation. It merely announced that an unlawful enter¬ 
prise was on foot in the Western States, and warned all per¬ 
sons to withdraw from it immediately. 


166 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


Burr’s cypher letter to Gen. Wilkinson, and General Eaton’s 
testimony, is what convinced the people of the United States 
that Aaron Burr was a traitor. After his arrest, in Mississippi 
Territory, the Grand Jury acquitted him, remarking that 
Aaron Burr had not been guilty of an}^ crime. He was re¬ 
arrested in Alabama, and brought to Richmond, Virginia, in 
May, 1807, when he was again put on trial, which lasted sev¬ 
eral days. Jefferson, always believing that Burr attempted to 
cheat him out of the election of 1800, was anxious to have 
him convicted, but Burr, with his able counsel, so managed 
his case that Judge Marshall charged the Jury in such a way 
that they rendered their verdict: “ We, of the Jury, say Aaron 
Burr is not proved to he guilty, under the indictment, by any evi¬ 
dence submitted to us. We therefore find him not guilty.” 

Although Burr was not convicted, he suffered the odium of 
a traitor even until the day of his death. He had fought with 
great bravery to achieve American Independence, and, in his 
early days, was the most promising statesman of his time. 
His great abilities were dreaded by the leaders of both par¬ 
ties, and the unfortunate circumstances occurring in the bal¬ 
loting for President organized the entire Republican party, 
headed by the administration, against him. The fatal duel 
with Hamilton (although the practice was not then unpopular) 
united the Federalists to complete his political ruin. Disap¬ 
pointed and defeated, he became disgusted with what he con¬ 
sidered ingratitude on the part of his country. He conceived 
the idea of revolutionizing Spanish America, and establishing 
a new government over Mexico. His enemies (and they were 
legion) said monarchy was to be the form ; while his intimate 
friends (they were few but ardent) declared he contemplated 
conquest and ultimate union of Mexico with the United States. 

Burr saw that annexation was only a question of time, and 
his calculations, then so novel and startling, have, through the 
annexation of Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Cal¬ 
ifornia, now passed into history. Who of us, in 1865, are so 
blind as not to discern the destiny of Mexico ? Maximillian 
may be very clever, and the Mexican people may have much 


AMERICAN UNION. 


167 


to learn : but neither his ability nor their ignorance can stand 
against the expansion of our free institutions. His visionary 
throne (although backed up by some of the monarchies of 
the old world) will disappear like a shadow at noonday. For 
the fates have decreed that wherever American blood is shed 
that soil becomes sacred to liberty. Palo Alto, Buena Vista, 
Vera Cruz, Besaca de la Palma, Monterey, Contreras, Churu- 
busco, Molino del Bey, Chepultepec, Puebla, and Cerro Gordo 
are places sacred to the people of the United States. There 
sleeps beneath their sod thousands of our countrymen, who, 
while living, fought to uphold our flag, and their bones 
now lie neglected in a foreign soil. Fidelity to American 
ideas, respect to the brave, our duty to ourselves and poster¬ 
ity, and sympathy for the down-trodden Mexicans, all demand 
that no monarchical institutions shall be allowed to exist and 
expand on American soil, nor any tyrannical emblem float 
over the sanctified graves of our kindred. 

Aaron Burr was a statesman. He wanted sea-room. He 
did not believe in the idea of the United States embracing 
only a small strip of land in the centre of the American con¬ 
tinent. He did not, like some others, dread the growth of the 
country, but was ever ready to enlarge its boundaries. His 
effort, in 1775, in company with the gallant Irishman Mont¬ 
gomery, to advance towards the north pole, though defeated 
at Quebec, gives an idea of his intentions when he turned to¬ 
wards the tropics. 

“There is no evidence that Burr meant to sever the West¬ 
ern States from the Union, or desired to do so, nor that he in¬ 
tended to seize New Orleans or any property in it. His pre¬ 
liminary object was Texas ; his ultimate object was the throne 
of Mexico.”— Parton’s Life of Burr, page 354. 

The best and strongest evidence of Burr's innocence is the 
fact that Andrew Jackson was his intimate friend. He went 
all the way to Richmond during Burr's trial, and, in the pub¬ 
lic streets, made speeches before thousands, vindicating him 
and denouncing President Jefferson for interfering with the 
expedition. Jackson was not a traitor ; neither did he ever 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


168 

countenance disunion in any shape. ‘‘Burr and Jackson were 
always good friends. In a letter, dated Nov. 20, 1815, to Gov. 
Alston, Burr urges him to use his influence to break up the cau¬ 
cus system by making a respectable nomination in the person 
of Andrew Jackson, instead of Monroe.”— Statesman's Manual , 
Yol. I, page 476. 

These remarks have been continued at some length to give 
the reader the true outlines of the history of the Burr expe¬ 
dition. He was a man that had ideas in advance of his time, 
(he also had faults.) But if he lived at the present day he 
would see most of the country he sought to acquire now be¬ 
longing to the Federal Union. He would also have the pleas¬ 
ure of witnessing Canada, which he and the gallant Mont¬ 
gomery endeavored to rescue from Great Britain, forming a 
Confederacy on its hook and taking the management of its 
affairs into its own hands, which is a preliminary step in the 
right direction. He would have seen the great civil strife, 
which grew out of the imperfections of the Constitution, 
which he predicted would not last much beyond fifty years. 
But he would also have seen, what he did not foresee nor pre¬ 
dict—the triumphant vindication of the Union. 

The embargo act was a favorite measure of Jefferson’s ad¬ 
ministration. It caused great distress in the country, and 
greatly weakened the Republican party. It was in the period 
of greatest distress that the Presidential election came on. 
Virginia was in the field with two candidates, Madison and 
Monroe. The Congressional caucus decided in Madison’s favor 
by 80 majority. Clinton, who had been Vice President in 
Jefferson’s last term, was chosen by the caucus for the same 
position under Madison. It is needless to say this ticket was 
elected. The theory of States’ Rights, which had been so 
much talked of before the Republicans got control of the Fed¬ 
eral Government, was almost forgotten. They occupied the 
Federal forts, and there was no party left to man the States’ 
Rights artillery, whose batteries the Constitution had left to 
be used against itself by the disaffected minority. In after 
years they became the den and hiding place for every vile ism 


AMERICAN UNION. 


169 


that contemplated war against the authority of i&e Federal 
Government. 

State Rights was the prelude to raise the hue and cry 
against every measure adopted by the Government for de¬ 
fence. First against the whisky tax, by Pennsylvania ; then 
against the Embargo Act and the war of 1812, by the Hartford 
Conventionists ; then against the tariff, by South Carolina ; 
then against the fugitive slave law, by many of the Northern 
States ; and then against freedom by the slave States com¬ 
bined ; and finally it was given in great triumph by the assas¬ 
sin, as justifying the murder of Mr. Lincoln —sic semper ty¬ 
rannise the motto of the State of Virginia. He was a stickler 
for State Rights. By it he claimed the right, and, for slavery’s 
sake, assassinated the President. 

iifadison was not in favor of State Rights, as the extracts 
given from his letters, in another part of this. book, abund¬ 
antly prove. He was put forward as the strongest man Vir¬ 
ginia had, as the politicians of that State had an understanding. 
There was no excitement about State Rights during his first 
election. Our foreign relations was the all-absorbing ques¬ 
tion. The result of Jefferson’s foreign policy was ruining the 
country. On the 1st of March, 1809, Congress passed the 
Non-Intercourse Act, and on the 15th of the same month re¬ 
pealed the Embargo Act as to all nations except England and 
France, between whom and the United States no trade was 
permitted. 

The Massachusetts Legislature, in January, 1809, in a report 
on the state of the country at the end of Jefferson’s adminis¬ 
tration, says : “Our agriculture is discouraged; the fisheries 
abandoned ; navigation forbidden ; our commerce at home re¬ 
strained, if not annihilated; our commerce abroad cut off; our 
navy sold, dismantled,or degraded to the service of cutters or 
gun-boats ; the revenue extinguished; the course of justice 
interrupted ; and the nation weakened by internal animosities 
and divisions, at the moment when it is unnecessarily and im- 
providently exposed to a war with Great Britain, France, and 
Spain.” 


170 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


The foregoing is a true picture of the condition of the coun¬ 
try and the administration of the first State Rights President. 
Russell, in his researches of the Life of Jefferson, remarks: 
“ Let us suppose that Mr. Jefferson had been chosen to carry 
into practice the first experiment of the Federal Government 
instead of Washington, and that he had applied his system of 
State Rights and popular interference to the new machine 
which the Federal Convention had just placed in the hands 
of the Executive. Is it not self-evident that, for want of vigor 
and energy, the Constitution would have crumbled to pieces 
in his hands, and left him in possession only of the fragments 
of the old Confederacy.” 

Madison was a Federalist, and advocated the adoption of 
the Constitution ; and his great ability carried it through the 
Virginia Convention by 11 majority—for its adoption/ ; ^9 ; 
against it, 78. 

It soon became evident that our foreign relations were in a 
condition to demand immediate attention. Jefferson had re¬ 
duced the army and navy, and almost left the nation power¬ 
less for defence. The administration of Madison increased 
the army from 3,000 to 20,000 men, and Congress also passed 
an act authorizing the President to receive the service of 
50,000 volunteers. Madison was not desirous of having a war 
during his administration, but was actually forced into it. 
He thought a declaration of war at a time when the Govern¬ 
ment had been stripped of all its armor, was impolitic. Mr. 
Monroe was the only one of his Cabinet officers with a mili¬ 
tary turn of mind. 

One John Henry, a native of Ireland, had been employed 
by Sir Jonas H. Craig, Governor of Canada, to visit Boston 
and arrange for a dissolution of the Union with some of the 
Federalists of New England. He could find no one that sym¬ 
pathized with his mission, and returned to Canada in 1811. 
In February, 1812, he disclosed the secret to Madison, and re¬ 
ceived a reward of $50,000. 

The declaration of war against Great Britain was approved 
by Mr. Midison, June 18th, 1812. Members of Congress from 



AMERICAN UNION. 


171 


the South and West carried the war measure against the will 
and consent of the Northern States. Of 79 members of the 
House who voted for war, 46 resided south, and 86 north of 
the Delaware. Of the 19 Senators who voted for war, 14 
resided south, and 5 north of the Delaware. 

On the 18th of May, 1812, Madison was renominated by the 
vote of 82 members of Congress. Money matters were now 
stringent, and all the banks had suspended except a few in 
New England. War was unpopular, and taxation was dreaded. 
The invasion of Canada commenced in 1812, and the last im¬ 
portant action of the war was fought Jan. 8,1815—Gen. Jack¬ 
son’s victory over the British Gen. Packenham, at New Or¬ 
leans. This battle was fought after peace was sigiled at 
Ghent, December 24, 1814. Very little was accomplished by 
the war, except a marked respect since shown by the British 
Government to the rights of our seamen. 

The Hartford Convention assembled in Hartford, Connecti¬ 
cut, Dec. 15, 1814, and sat twenty days. This Convention met 
to express the sentiments of the anti-war party of New Eng¬ 
land. The following is part of the report made by them at 
the time : “ In cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable 
impositions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of a 
State and the liberties of the people, it is not only the right hut 
the duty of each State to interpose its authority for their protec¬ 
tion in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emer¬ 
gencies occur which are either beyond the reach of judicial 
tribunals or too pressing to admit of delay incident to their 
forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own 
judges and execute their own decisions.” 

The true cause of grievance against the administration was, 
that it had withheld all supplies for the maintenance of the 
militia for the year 1814, both in Massachusetts and Connecti¬ 
cut, and thus forced upon these States the burden of support¬ 
ing the troops employed for defending their coasts from inva¬ 
sion and their towns from being sacked. The number of del¬ 
egates at this Convention was 26. The Legislatures of Mas¬ 
sachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island sent delegates. In 


172 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


Vermont and New Hampshire the delegates received their 
appointments from local conventions. No one of the members 
of this Convention would ever admit that a dissolution of the 
Union was contemplated, but contended that it was simply to 
bring about a remedy for burdens too grievous to be borne. 
That the entire section had much to endure during the war 
of 1812, no one acquainted with the history of those times 
will deny ; but they counseled resistance to Federal authority 
under the plea of State Rights. Although it was not in the 
form of an article of dissolution or ordinance of secession, yet 
all must admit that it had the smell of treason. 

Under the names of Republican and Democrat this party 
stigmatized the Hartford Conventionists as traitors, and now 
come round and say they were right. 

Pollard, in his 1st volume, page 59, Southern History of the 
War , speaking of this Convention, says : “ This is the doc¬ 
trine which the South had always held from the beginning, 
and for which she is now pouring out her blood and treasure.” 

By hitching the slave interest on to the State Rights heresy, 
they inaugurated war against the General Government. The 
Federal , afterwards the Whig, then the Republican , and lastly 
the Union party, have ever kept in view the idea that “ we, 
the people of the United States,” made the Federal Govern¬ 
ment, and are bound to sustain it against State Rights, slavery 
and rebellion. 

The loss of life resulting from the war of 1812 may be set 
down at about 30,000 men ; and the total expenditure of the 
United States during the contest was about $100,000,000. It 
lasted about three years. The Americans, on the ocean and 
lakes, had captured about 56 British ships of war, mounting 
886 cannon, and 2,360 merchant vessels, mounting 8,000 guns, 
of which 345 were ships, 610 brigs, 520 schooners, 135 sloops, 
and 750 vessels of various classes taken by the Americans 
and retaken by the British ; making altogether 2,416 vessels, 
with their specie and cargoes, and about 30,000 prisoners of 
war. The British captures were less—1,407 merchant ves¬ 
sels, and 20,961 American seamen prisoners of war. 


AMERICAN UNION. 


173 


Near the latter end of the war, on the 24th of August, 1814, 
Washington City was captured by the British and the Capitol 
burned. This war was brewing during Jefferson’s last term. 
It commenced during Madison’s first, and was brought to an 
end towards the close of his second term. 

Mr. Monroe was nominated by the Virginia influence. The 
Congressional caucus was held March 16, 1816. Monroe got 
65 votes in the caucus, and Win. H. Crawford, of Georgia, 54. 
Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York, got 85 votes for Vice 
President on the same ticket. 

Madison was Federal in his views as regards the power con¬ 
ferred on the National Government. When the discussion 
arose about the power of the General Government to annul 
State laws wherein Congress deemed them improper, Madison 
remarked, “ that he could not but regard an indefinite power 
to negative legislative acts of the States as absolutely neces¬ 
sary to a perfect system .”—Analysis of Constitution, page 134. 

Monroe was an Anti-Federalist, and opposed the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution, in 1787, in the Virginia Legisla¬ 
ture, while Madison, Marshall, Randolph, and Pendleton, de¬ 
fended and voted for it. Madison’s administration terminated 
on the 3d of March, 1817, and Monroe was inaugurated the 
following day. About the first tiling he did, after selecting 
his Cabinet officers, was to take a tour round the Atlantic 
coast to inspect the forts, and arrange for perfecting proper 
means of defence from invasion. The result of the war of 
1812 had fully established the importance of this movement. 
He left Washington the 31st of May, 1817,and was gone about 
three months. 

Although Mr. Monroe was understood to be a Republican, 
yet, strange to say, he called as his Cabinet officers men of 
the Federal stamp. John Q. Adams, Crawford, Crownin- 
shield, and Wirt, were all of the same views as Alexander 
Hamilton in regard to the powers of the National Government. 
In his first term an act was passed, at the recommendation of 
the President, granting a pension to revolutionary soldiers, of 
whom about 13,000 were yet living; also an act respecting 


174 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


the flag of the United States, fixing the number of stripes, 
alternate red and white, at thirteen, and directed that the 
Union be represented by stars equal to the number of 
States, white in a blue field. The Florida war commenced in 
his first term, and was only brought to a close August 14, 
1843. It originated on account of a desire on the part of the 
slaveholders to drive out the Seminole Indians, who, they de¬ 
clared, were harboring runaway slaves, and means were re¬ 
sorted to and excuses framed to bring about a collision. 

Everything appeared to Work well with his administration 
until Feb. 28, 1820, when Missouri asked admission into the 
Union with its peculiar slave Constitution. This question was 
continued until the 28th of February, 1821, and the act ad¬ 
mitting it was passed and signed by Monroe on the 2d of 
March, same year. The workings of the Federal Government 
up to this time had embraced almost all political questions. 
But when the slavery question began to agitate Congress, the 
doctrine of State Rights was now claimed to be of prominent 
importance. It was evident to every statesman that when 
these two questions became linked together, presenting an 
undivided front, they would destroy the peace of the country. 

Having been renominated by the caucus, Monroe was re¬ 
elected, in 1820, almost unanimously. He was a half-and-half 
party man ; he opposed in a great measure the policy marked 
out by Jefferson, and could not, after his election, be claimed 
as the embodiment of Republican ideas. The power is granted 
to Congress by the Constitution “ to make all laws which shall 
be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the fore¬ 
going powers.” This clause has been a source of contention 
ever since the formation of the Government. Monroe, in his 
Internal Improvement message, May 4, 1822, treats the sub¬ 
ject at great length, and aims at the conclusion that the object 
of granting these powers was to leave nothing to implication . 
He also held that these powers were inherent in the very na¬ 
ture of the compact, and would have existed substantially if 
the grant had not been made. Most of his Cabinet officers 
were Federal, and when he became President, although previ- 


AMERICAN UNION. 


175 


ously a strong Republican, he inclined so much towards the 
Federalists’ views of the Constitution that his old political 
associates called him a no-party man. 

In his seventh annual message, Dec. 2, 1823, he remarks: 
“ But, in regard to these continents, circumstances are eminent¬ 
ly and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the Allied 
Powers should extend their political system to any portion of 
either continent ivithout endangering our peace and happiness .” 
This idea was first promulgated by him, and has since been 
known as the Monroe Doctrine. 

The efforts of Aaron Burr’s friends to secure for him the 
office of President, when the}" well knew that the people had 
chosen Jefferson for that exalted position, put a quietus on 
electing the Vice President as the successor. Before that, 
Adams, the Vice President under Washington, was chosen to 
succeed him, and Jefferson, Vice President under Adams, fol¬ 
lowed. The Yice Presidency, up to this time, was looked upon 
as a kind of school to fit a man for the higher station of Chief 
Magistrate. But the excitement attending the election of 
1800 prevented the election of any Yice President to the 
Presidency for the period of 36 years, when Martin Yan Bu- 
ren, who had been Yice President under Jackson, was chosen 
to succeed him. John Tyler and Millard Fillmore became 
Presidents after the assassinations of Harrison and Taylor; 
and our present Chief Magistrate, Andrew Johnson, holds his 
position in consequence of the assassination of President 
Lincoln. 

The election of 1825 going to the House produced a reaction 
in favor of Jackson, who entirely broke up the Congressional 
caucus system of nominating Presidential candidates. He was 
placed in the field early by his own State in 1829. This com¬ 
pletely destroyed the caucus system. He was again nominated 
by the Legislatures of Pennsylvania and New York, and was 
re-elected. 

The Convention system was first introduced at Baltimore, in 
September, 1831. It originated out of the Anti-Mason ex¬ 
citement in Western New York. One William Morgan, a na- 


176 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


tive of Virginia, then residing in Batavia, New York, had pub¬ 
lished what was supposed to reveal the three first degrees of 
Masonry. He suddenly disappeared, and his supposed death 
was charged against the Masonic Order, but no evidence has 
ever been adduced to establish the truth of the charge. Even 
if the Lodge of which he was a member had made way with 
him (of which there is no evidence) it could not be charged 
on the Order. 

Mr. Clay was then the opponent of Jackson. The Conven¬ 
tion would have liked to have had him as their candidate, but 
Clay being a Mason, his nomination was out of the question. 
After adopting a platform, the Convention nominated Wm. 
Wirt, of Maryland, as a candidate for President, and Amos 
Ellmaker, of Pennsylvania, as Vice President. At this Presi¬ 
dential election, the party names underwent a change. Re¬ 
publicans changed to Democrat and Federalists to Whig. 

The party that had nominated Wirt called themselves the 
National Republican party, and carried the State of Vermont. 
The Whigs met in December, of the same year, (1831,) at the 
same place, and nominated Clay for President, and John Ser¬ 
geant, of Pennsylvania, for VicePresident. These two parties, 
with their candidates, led the opposition, and the most they 
expected was again to throw the election into the House. 
The State of New Hampshire sent out a call for a National 
Convention to nominate a candidate for Vice President. Cal¬ 
houn had a quarrel with Jackson, and the Democracy assem¬ 
bled in force May 21, 1832, in Baltimore. Martin Van Buren 
was chosen by 203 out of 283 members present. 

The Convention system has been kept up by both parties 
ever since, the Democratic party adopting the two-thirds rule 
in nominating, which has been the means of slaughtering 
nearly all its best statesmen for twenty years. The Native 
American and Abolition parties also both resorted to the Con¬ 
vention system to bring their candidates into the field. The 
slavery controversy having now become the all-absorbing ques 
tion before the country, we refer the reader, for further par¬ 
ticulars concerning candidates, to another part of this work. 


AMERICAN UNION. 


177 


We close this part of our subject by giving the following 
electoral vote of all the Presidential contests, from Washing¬ 
ton to Lincoln, together with the annual expenditures of each 
administration. 


I George Washington, Virginia. 69 

1789 k John Adams, Massachusetts. 34 

( Scattering . 35 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $1,986,588. 


f George Washington, Virginia.132 

1793 k John Adams, Massachusetts. 77 

( George Clinton, New York. 50 

Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $1,986,588. 

'John Adams, Massachusetts. 71 

Thomas Jefferson, Virginia. 68 

1797 - Thomas Pinckney, South Carolina. 59 

Aaron Burr, New York. 30 

Scattering . 48 

Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $5,287,088. 


f Thomas Jefferson, Virginia. 73 

iftm J John Adams, Massachusetts.. 65 

j Aaron Burr, New York. 73 

[ Charles C. Pinckney, South Carolina. 64 


The vote for Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr being equal, the House of 
Representatives proceeded on AVednesday, February 11, 1801, to the choice 
of a President of the United States. On the first ballot eight States voted 
for Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, six States voted for Aaron Burr, of New 
York, and the votes of two States were divided. The balloting continued 
until Tuesday, 17th Feb. 1801, when on the thirty-sixth ballot the votes of 
ten States were given for Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, the votes of four 
States for Aaron Burr, of New York, and the votes of two States in blank, 
and Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia was elected. 

Aaron Burr, as Vice President, took the oath of office, and entered upon 
his duties on the 4th of March, 1801. 

Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $5,142,598. 


1805 j Thomas Jefferson, Virginia.162 

Pres. 1 Charles C. Pinckney, South Carolina. 14 

,, -p j George Clinton, New York.162 

V. rres. -j Rufus King, New York. 14 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $5,142,598. 


1809 j James Madison, Virginia.122 

Pres. ( Charles C. Pinckney, South Carolina. 47 

, r -p j George Clinton, New York.113 

V.Frcs. j Rufus King, New York. 47 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $18,085,617. 

12 


























178 


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 


1813 j James Madison, Virginia.128 

Pres. ( DeWitt Clinton, New York. 89 

v p j Elbridge Gerry, Massachusetts.131 

v. res. | j are( i Ingersoll, Pennsylvania. 86 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $18,085,617. 


1817 j James Monroe, Virginia.183 

Pres. ( Rufus King, New York. 34 

V. Pres. Daniel D. Tompkins, New York.183 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $13,045,431. 


1821 Pres. James Monroe, Virginia. 231 

V. Pres. Daniel D. Tompkins, New York.218 

Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $13,045,431. 

' Andrew Jackson, Tennessee. 99 

1825 John Q. Adams, Massachusetts. 84 

Pres. Wm. H. Crawford, Georgia.41 

Henry Clay, Kentucky. 37 

v Pvoe John C. Calhoun, South Carolina.182 

Nathan Sanford, New York. 30 

Votes in the f Adams.13 

House of ■< Jackson. 7 

Representatives. ( Crawford. 4 


For Vice President, Henry Clay, of Kentucky, received two. 

Neither of the persons voted for as President having received a majority 
of the votes, it devolved upon the House of Representatives to choose a 
President from the three highest on the list of those voted for by the elec¬ 
tors for President, which three were, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, 
and William H. Crawford. The votes of thirteen States were given for John 
Quincy Adams; the votes of seven States for Andrew Jackson, and the 
votes of four States for William H. Crawford. John Quincy Adams, having 
received a majority of the votes of all the States of this Union, was duly 
elected President of the United States for four years, to commence on the 
4th of March, 1825. 

Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $12,625,478. 


1829 j Andrew Jackson, Tennessee.178 

Pres. 1 John Q. Adams, Massachusetts. 83 

(John C. Calhoun, South Carolina.171 

V. Pres. -< Richard Rush, Pennsylvania. 83 

( William Smith, South Carolina. 7 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $18,068,301. 


1833 

Pres. 

V. Pres. 


Andrew Jackson, Tennessee.219 

Hemy Clay, Kentucky. 49 

Martin Van Buren, New York.189 

John Sergeant, Pennsylvania. 49 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $18,068,301. 































AMERICAN UNION, 


179 


1337 j Martin Van Buren, New York.170 

Pres. ) Win. H. Harrison, Ohio. 73 

Y Pres ] Johnson, Kentucky.147 

( Francis Granger, New York... 77 

Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $28,047,173, 

1841 j Wm. H. Harrison, Ohio.234 

Pres. | Martin Van Buren, New York. 60 

V Prp<? i John T y ler > Virginia. 234 

| R. M. Johnson, Kentucky. 48 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $23,541,238. 


1845 

Pres. 

V. Pres. 


James K. Polk, Tennessee.170 

Henry Clay, Kentucky.105 

George M. Dallas, Pennsylvania.170 

T. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey.105 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $36,681,101. 


1849 j Zachary Taylor, Louisiana....163 

Pres. ( Lewis Cass, Michigan.127 

V Prpa j Millard Fillmore, New York.163 

( Wm. O. Butler, Kentucky.127 


Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, while Taylor lived, 
$31,074,347. Fillmore, his successor, increased it to $44,805,721. 


1853 j Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire. 254 

Pres. 1 Winfield Scott, New York. 42 

v Pr c i William R. King, Alabama.254 

v * e * ( Wm. A. Graham, North Carolina. 42 

Average annual expenditure, exclusive of public debt, $55,872,028. 

( J ames Buchanan, Pennsylvania.174 

-p ' •< John C. Fremont, California.113 

rres. j Millard Fillmore, New York. 8 

( J. C. Breckinridge, Kentucky.174 

V. Pres. •< Wm. L. Dayton, New Jersey.113 

( Andrew J. Donelson, Tennessee. 8 

Expenditure for year ending June 31, 1858.$82,062,186 74 

“ “ “ “ “ 1859. 83,678,643 92 

“ “ “ “ “ I860. 77,055,125 65 

“ “ « “ “ 1861. 85,387,313 08 


Total.$328,183,269 39 * 

The public debt on the 7th of March, 1861, was $76,159,667, consistii 
of $59,696,956 funded debt, and $16,462,711 treasury notes outstanding. 

Abraham Lincoln, Illinois.180 

1860 Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois. 12 

Pres. John C. Breckinridge, Kentucky. 72 

John Bell, Tennessee. 39 








































180 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 

Popular Vote in 1860. 

Lincoln.1,864,104 

Douglas. 992,859 

Breckinridge..... 669,273 

Fusion ( Bern .). 563,741 

Bell. 588,814 

Expenditure for year ending June 30, 1862. 570,841,700 25 

“ “ “ “ “ 1863. 895,796,630 65 

“ “ « “ “ 1864. 1,298,144,656 00 

Do Estimated “ “ “ “ 1865. 1,409,082,455 84 


Total.$4,173,865,442 74 

1864 j Abraham Lincoln, Illinois.280 

Pres. ( George B. McClellan, New Jersey. 21 

Popular Vote in 1864. 

Lincoln.2,223,035 

McClellan..1,811,754 

The public debt on the 1st of July, 1865, is estimated to amount to 
$2,223,364,677 81, if the amounts to be raised correspond with the estimates. 

















HISTORY 


OF 

GrREAT OIVIL WARS. 

HOW THEY ENDED. 


The Peloponnesian war which began four hundred and 
thirty-two years B. 0., lasted twenty-seven years. This 
war was brought on by the rivalry of the Grecian states— 
state sovereignty or autonomy. Pericles wanted union, but 
his efforts to form a great nation from rival sovereignties 
proved a failure. 

Sparta and Athens held slaves. The latter over 400,000, to 
60,000 persons. The former Sparta was the South Carolina 
of Greece during the progress of the war; she, fearing insur¬ 
rection among the slaves, offered liberty to all that would join 
the army. 2,000 came up to accept the boon, and the oli¬ 
garchs had them secretly led away and massacred. By 
this fiendish treachery they were enabled to get rid of an ele¬ 
ment that might produce discord at home. 

It is curious to contrast the numbers engaged in our war 
with those engaged in the great wars of the past: 

“We select two decisive battles. One of these was fought 
in the harbor of Syracuse. In an expedition against Sicily, 
Athens had strained every nerve and equipped a magnificent 
fleet and army. They sailed out of the Pirgeus with sound of 
trumpets, paeans, and libations of wine from gold and silver 
cups. This great army consisted of five thousand heavy 
armed infantry. It was reinforced by another of about the 
same number. When gathered at Syracuse they numbered 
in all—heavy armed infantry, natives of the island, and slaves 
who were light-armed and only employed as skirmishers— 



182 


HISTORY OP GREAT CIVIL WARS. 


twenty thousand men. This, in the language of Thucydides, 
made her power appear ‘ stupendous/ and her resources ‘ be¬ 
yond calculation/ 

“ The final and decisive battle was that of Aigospotami, 
when Athens lost her fleet, and nearly her whole army was 
surprised and taken prisoners. The numbers engaged in bat¬ 
tle are not told ; but the number of prisoners, who were native 
Athenians, is recorded as three thousand, which seems to have 
made up the bulk of her army in the last decisive engage¬ 
ment.” 

NOW AND THEN. 

As to the numbers engaged, the little state of Massachusetts 
has furnished more men in our present struggle than fought 
on both sides in the great English rebellion. It has sent more 
men into the field than Julius Caesar commanded to gain the 
empire of the world ; more than all the troops of Hellas put 
together in the long struggle that rent her in pieces, when 
her sun went down in blood. The state of New York has 
equipped more soldiers than all the troops of Caesar and Pom- 
pey put together, though drawn from every province, from the 
Euphrates to the pillars of Hercules. The whole army of 
Cromwell would only serve as skirmishers, or as a detail for a 
“•'raid” from the army of Grant or Sherman. His great military 
fame was gained by managing twenty-five thousand men ; and 
its marches and evolutions were within an area less extensive 
than the state of Virginia.” 

THE ENGLISH REBELLION. 

“The great civil war of England, known as ‘ the Great Re¬ 
bellion/ was also a conflict between the oligarchs and the com¬ 
mons ; called the Cavaliers and the Roundheads ; more appro¬ 
priately, the King and his Parliament. It divided England 
horizontally—the king and the lords and the bishops on one 
side, the commons on the other; and it decided the question 
forever, whether constitutional government was a possible 
boon to the English race. 

“ The war opened in 1642, and continued seven years. It 


HISTORY OF GREAT CIVIL WARS. 


183 


would probably have been finished in half that time, but for 
the hesitancy and half measures of Essex, the first parlia¬ 
mentary general. The first conflict of Edgehill has its exact 
parallel in Antietam. It was a drawn battle : both parties 
laying all night on their arms ; but, in the morning, Hampden 
came up with four thousand fresh men. Julius Csesar would 
have followed up quickly the former day’s work, and, with 
blow upon blow, finished the royalists and the war. Instead 
of this, the armies ‘ looked at each other/ dreaded to renew 
the fight, and drew off, each by itself, much to the chagrin 
and disgust of Hampden. Five thousand were left slain upon 
the field—slain to no purpose, as nothing was decided. So 
things went on, till Oliver Cromwell came with his ‘ ironside 
regiment/ and, at the decisive battle of Naseby, dashed upon 
the king’s forces, and shivered them in pieces. 

“We may smile, on reading over these great battles, at the 
numbers engaged. They varied from twenty to twenty-five 
thousand men on each side, never exceeding the latter num¬ 
ber. The battle of Marston Moor was the most obstinately 
contested, between ‘ the most numerous armies that were 
engaged during the course of these wars / and in that battle, 
as Hume laments, fifty thousand British troops were led to 
mutual slaughter. Such was the price paid ; the end achieved 
was free government for the English race everywhere.” 

Wars unskillfully waged are the bloodiest of all. Cassar, 
in a three years’ war between the Caesareans and Pompeians, 
lost fewer men than McClellan did in a single campaign on 
the Peninsula. Indeed, it is said, more lives have been lost in 
our present war than the great civil wars of Greece, Rome 
and England put together ; and this might have been avoided 
had the North been a military people. 

THE EFFECT OF INTERVENTION. 

“ It is well to look into the gulf of ruin from which our 
present civil war has saved us. Resolving the Union into 
thirty-six state sovereignties would place us exactly where the 
Greek Autonomies were placed in their struggle of twenty- 


184 


HISTORY OF GREAT CIYIL WARS. 


seven years. It means mutual slaughter and final collapse, 
until some stronger third power comes in and adjusts the 
bleeding fragments. Persia finally ‘intervened’ in favor of 
Sparta : and her hateful despotism was pressed down upon all 
the States of Hellas and her lovely islands. Thebes finally 
rebelled against it, led on by the great Epaminondas ; and a 
second series of civil wars brought on a more complete ex¬ 
haustion, and a more deadly collapse. Philip of Macedon next 
‘ intervened/ and crushed them still lower into the dust, amid the 
dying thunders of Demosthenes, and the fading glories of the 
Grecian name. Next Rome ‘ intervened’ and conquered Mace¬ 
donia ; and both Macedonia and Hellas went down together 
under her iron heel. Next the Turk ‘ intervened ;’ and Rome, 
in all her Eastern empire, involving Greece with her ancient 
states and beautiful isles, was eclipsed in a more baleful despo¬ 
tism and in heathen night. Such are the last results of auto¬ 
nomy—dismemberment, mutual hate and slaughter, national 
extinction and death. So the lovliest form of ancient civiliza¬ 
tion, in a democracy just rising to the glories of empire, was 
sacrificed to the insane notion of petty ‘ state sovereignty ;’ 
and when we now ask, Where is Hellas ? we are only answered 
by poets, who sing her elegy : 

“Ask the Paynim slave, 

Who treads all tearless on her hallowed graves; 

Invoke the spirits of the past, and shed 
The voice of your strong bidding on the dead ! 

Lo, from a thousand crumbling tombs they rise— 

The great of old, the powerful and the wise! 

And a sad tale, which none but they can tell, 

Falls on the mournful silence like a knell. 

Then mark yon lonely pilgrim bend and weep 
Above the mound where genius lies in sleep. 

And is this all ? Alas! we turn in vain, 

And, turning, meet the self-same waste again— 

The same drear wilderness of stern decay; 

Its former pride, the phantom of a day; 

A song of summer birds within a bower , 

A dream of beauty traced upon a flower; 

A lute whose master chord has ceased to sound ; 

A morning star struck darkling to the ground.” 


PEACE BY DIPLOMACY. 


185 


DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS TO BRING ABOUT PEACE BEFORE AND DURING 
THE FIGHT.—MR. LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 

Ever since war was determined on by the South efforts 
have been made by individuals on both sides to bring about 
peace by diplomacy. Before Buchanan’s administration ex¬ 
pired South Carolina sent delegates to Washington to arrange 
for a peaceable dissolution of the Union. On the 5th of 
March, 1861, John Forsythe, Martin J. Crawford, and A. B. 
Roman, were sent by the Confederate authorities. They 
proposed a peaceable dissolution of the Union, and a division 
of its effects. Then came, in after times, Sanders, Thompson, 
Tucker and Clay, of Canada plotting assassination fame. 

From the North, by permission, went Col. Jaques, and his 
colleague,, and had a talk with the rebel chiefs in Richmond. 
Then Horace Greeley met Clay, Thompson, and Sanders, at 
Niagara Falls. The above seekers were unable to find peace, 
but Mr. Greeley thought it not so difficult to attain as was 
generally thought. In January, 1865, Francis P. Blair, of 
Washington, and Gen. Singleton, of Illinois, by permission, 
made a visit to Richmond, and induced Jeff Davis to renew 
his efforts for peace through diplomacy. Vice President A. 
H. Stephens, Judge Campbell, and R. M. T. Hunter, were 
chosen by him, and sent to confer with President Lincoln. 
The meeting was arranged, and took place on board the Uni¬ 
ted States transport River Queen , in Hampton Roads, Va., 
February 3, 1865. The rebel Commissioners demanded an 
armistice , as a preliminary measure. This President Lincoln 
refused to grant. 

Secretary Seward, who was at the conference with Presi¬ 
dent Lincoln, in a letter to Mr. Adams, our British Minister, 
dated Feb. 9, 1865, remarks : “ The Richmond party were 
then informed that Congress had, on the 21st ult., adopted by 
a constitutional majority a joint resolution submitting to the 
several States the proposition to abolish slavery throughout 
the Union, and that there is every reason to believe that it 
will be accepted by three-fourths of the States, so as to be- 


186 


PEACE BY DIPLOMACY. 


come a part gf the national organic law. The conference came 
to an end by mutual acquiescence, without producing an agree¬ 
ment of views upon the several matters discussed, or any of 
them. Nevertheless, it is perhaps of some importance that 
we have been able to submit our opinions and views directly 
to prominent insurgents, and to hear them in answer in a cour¬ 
teous and not unfriendly manner. 

The following is the rebel version, as given by A. H. Ste¬ 
phens : 

Davis sent for his Vice President, and informed him of the 
purport of Blair’s mission. Stephens advised that Davis him¬ 
self should go to meet President Lincoln, and Generals Grant 
and Lee should be the only persons even to know of the meet¬ 
ing or be present at the interview. Davis refused to adopt 
this plan, and appointed three Commissioners to go in his 
place. He instructed them not to enter into any agreement 
whatever without his rank as President was first recognized. 
During the conference, while this point was being discussed, 
Hunter received a settler from Mr. Lincoln. 

Mr. Hunter made a long reply, insisting that the recogni¬ 
tion of Davis’s power to make a treaty was the first and in¬ 
dispensable step to peace, and referring to the correspondence 
between King Charles the First and his Parliament, as a relia¬ 
ble precedent of a constitutional ruler treating with rebels. 
Mr. Lincoln’s face then wore that indescribable expression 
which generally preceded his hardest hits, and he remarked . 

‘ Upon questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, 
for he is posted in such things, and I don’t propose to be 
bright. My only distinct recollection of the matter is, that 
Charles lost his head.” That settled Mr. Hunter for a while. 

After this Mr. Lincoln’s manner became earnest, and he 
gave the Commissioners to understand that nothing short of 
unconditional restoration of the Union could for a moment be 
entertained, and said the time might come when they (the 
rebels) would not be considered as an erring people invited 
back to citizenship, but would be looked upon as enemies to 
be exterminated or ruined, 


PEACE BY DIPLOMACY. 


187 


A. H. Stephens (so says the Augusta Chronicle , June 7, 
1865) states that President Lincoln, at the conference, offered 
to pay to the South, for the loss of her slaves, $400,000,000 in 
gold. He says this offer was suppressed in making the report, 
but was reported to Davis confidentially, as the Commission¬ 
ers believed it would damage Mr. Lincoln, and perhaps prevent 
him in future from renewing the same liberal offer. 

Judge Campbell, in his report, says he was satisfied with 
Mr. Lincoln’s ultimatum, and was ready to acquiesce. Several 
days after their return to Richmond, he says Hunter became 
convinced of the hopelessness of looking or fighting for any¬ 
thing better, and sided with him. Stephens at first thought a 
longer delay might result more favorable to the South, but 
on the eve of his departure for Georgia (which took place the 
day before the meeting at the African Church) he also acqui¬ 
esced with the other Commissioners. 

After the capture of Richmond Judge Campbell remained 
in the place, and expressed a desire to Generals Weitzel and 
Shepley to see President Lincoln, whom he had learned was 
coming to the city. When Mr. Lincoln arrived the Generals 
communicated this to him, and he immediately sent for Camp¬ 
bell, who met him at Weitzel’s headquarters in the old Jeff. 
Davis mansion. Campbell expressed a great desire for peace, 
and insisted that Virginia should be taken back into the Un¬ 
ion, which would serve as a stepping stone for the other 
Southern States. He argued that if the Virginia Legislature 
was called together they would vote the State back at once. 
He submitted many plans to Mr. Lincoln—among others, that 
of assembling the leading men of Virginia at Richmond. Mr. 
Lincoln then stated to Campbell that it had been his inten¬ 
tion to return back to City Point immediately, but at his re¬ 
quest he would stay until the next day. In the meantime 
Campbell went in search of some leading men, but could only 
succeed in finding a Mr. Gustavus A. Meyers, a former mer¬ 
chant of the city. The next day the interview was held in 
the cabin of the Malvern , on board of which the President 
had retained his quarters. 


188 


PEACE BY DIPLOMACY. 


The New York Herald , of July 9, 1865, gives the following 
account of the proceedings, upon the arrival of Campbell and 
Meyers, in the presence of Gen. Weitzel: 

“After the ordinary greetings, Mr. Lincoln drew from the 
breast-pocket of his coat a folded document in his own hand¬ 
writing, covering parts of two pages of foolscap paper, with¬ 
out date or signature. He said that that paper contained his 
finality to the South. If the South desired peace, they could 
have it on the terms therein set forth, but on no other. He 
then proceeded to read the document, of which the following 
is an abstract: 

Three things are essential to peace : 

First. The restoration of the national authority throughout 
all the States. 

Second. No receding by the Executive of the United States 
on the slavery question from the position assumed thereon in 
the late annual message to Congress and in preceding docu¬ 
ments. 

Third. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the 
w r ar and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the Govern¬ 
ment 

All propositions coming from those in hostility to the Gov¬ 
ernment, and not inconsistent with the foregoing, will be re¬ 
spectfully considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere 
liberality. Beyond the indispensable terms any reasonable 
conditions will be entertained. 

The remission of confiscations was left within the power of 
the Executive. Confiscations will be enforced if the war is 
continued, but will be remitted to the people of any State 
which shall now promptly and in good faith withdraw its 
troops and other support from further resistance to the Gov¬ 
ernment. This has no reference to rights of property in slaves. 

Mr. Lincoln then re-read the paper, commenting at length 
on each paragraph and sentence, in order to make his meaning 
clear and distinct. The paper was then handed to the South¬ 
ern representatives. 


THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE. 


189 


THE QUESTION OF PARDONS. 

Mr. Lincoln remarked that the question of pardons was not 
mentioned in the paper. The pardoning power, he said, was 
vested wholly and unreservedly with himself. He could not 
force pardons upon anybody. Jeff. Davis had said that he 
would not accept a pardon from him (Mr. Lincoln). What was 
not worth asking for was not worth receiving. “ But most any¬ 
body can have most anything they choose to ask for.” 

mr. Lincoln’s plan for reassembling the Virginia 

LEGISLATURE. 

After some general conversation, Mr. Lincoln, doubtless re¬ 
ferring to the proposition of the previous evening, said : 

“I have been considering apian for reassembling the Vir¬ 
ginia Legislature. I deem it of the greatest importance that the 
same organization which has been casting the influence and 
support of the State to the rebels should bring the State back 
into the Union. If I can work it out in my mind I will let you 
know.” 

GENERAL WEITZEL’S PERMIT TO THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE. 

In justice to General Weitzel, whonrthe public has charged 
with transcending his authority in permittiug the call for the 
assembling of the Virginia Legislature to be made, this point 
is important. The proposition that had been made to Mr. 
Lincoln was to convene the public and leading statesmen of 
Virginia without reference to their official station, and to settle 
with them the terms and mode of reorganization, and to obtain 
their aid in composing and tranquilizing the people. On the 
following day the President addressed a note to General Weit¬ 
zel from City Point authorizing him to permit the convening 
of the Legislature, and directing that the note be shown to 
Judge Campbell. On that authority the call for the recon¬ 
vening of the Legislature was prepared and submitted to Gen¬ 
eral Shepley for approval. General Shepley made some alter¬ 
ations in its wording and then permitted it to be printed. 


190 


THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE. 


THE REVOCATION OF THE ORDER. 

In the meantime the late President returned to Washington, 
where, it would seem, the action had was made the topic of 
discussion in the Cabinet, by the advice of which body, and 
because of revelations hereinafter detailed, the President was 
led to revoke the action. He thereupon addressed a note to 
General Weitzel directing that the permission for the reasem- 
bling of the Virginia Legislature be revoked and all the papers 
that had passed in the premises be withdrawn. This note en¬ 
tered somewhat at length into the reasons that induced the 
Executive to adopt this course. Simultaneously with the re¬ 
ception of this note by General Weitzel, Major General E. 0. 
C. Ord, Commander of the Department of Virginia, arrived at 
Richmond, having previously been absent with one of his corps, 
co-operating with the Army of the Potomac in pursuit of Lee. 
His arrival here operated to relieve General Weitzel of the 
supreme command he had then been exercising, and the latter 
was sent to Petersburg with his corps. Because of the coin¬ 
cidence of these events it was generally stated in the Northern 
papers that General Weitzel was relieved because of having 
transcended his authority, in permitting the call to issue for 
the assembling of tne Legislature. From the above it will be 
seen ho^v unjust was this imputation. It is unfortunate that 
considerations of national policy forbid the publication in full 
of the late President/s final note to General Weitzel on this 
subject, which fully exonerates that officer from all blame or 
censure in the matter. 

It is however most probable, as stated on eminent authority, 
that Mr. Lincoln, in the honesty of his intentions and the frank¬ 
ness of his heart, permitted himself to be entrapped where he 
considered everything to be fair and honorable. It will be rem¬ 
embered that the proposition had been made to him to assemble 
“ the public and leading statesmen of Virginia, without refer¬ 
ence to their official station.” This proposition was intended 
and understood to mean the assembling of the people compos¬ 
ing the State Legislature, though not as an official body. Mr. 


THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE. 


191 


Lincoln, in referring to it, spoke of the “ Virginia Legislature, >7 
doubtless meaning thereby the unofficial body that had been 
spoken of to him ; and when he sanctioned the reassembling of 
that body, he did not intend that the old rebel Legislature 
should be called together as a recognized political orginaization, 
which wasattempted under the sanction gathered from his note. 
When he saw the literal interpretation that had been put upon 
his language by Campbell and others, he made haste to revoke 
the whole proceedings and recall all papers that had passed. 

It will be readily apprehended how deep was the plot thus 
working against the late President. Had “ Extra’ 7 Billy Smith 
and his Legislature been permitted to come back and exer¬ 
cise their functions as executive and legislative authorities of 
the State, it would have amounted to a recognition of those 
authorities, by which recognition would also have been impli¬ 
ed not only the disavowal and repudiation of Governor Pier- 
point and his government, hut also the government of West 
Virginia, and, indeed, the whole State organization of West Vir¬ 
ginia* ; for the old Richmond Virginia State government has 
never recognized the division of the State, and was composed 
of delegates from the counties now included in the State of 
West Virginia, as well as the other counties of Virginia proper. 

If Mr. Lincoln’s ideas may be deduced from the arguments 
that had been presented to him, and upon which his action 
was based, his design was to permit Extra Billy Smith’s Legis. 
lature to assemble in Richmond as a body of citizens, which, 
being looked upon in the South as the ligitimate government of 
the State, would have influence with the citizens of the State 
who were absent, and probably exert some influence over the 
other States. It was distinctly understood that if permitted 
to assemble this body would pass a bill declaring null and void 
all acts previously passed in hostility to the United States, 
and also recalling all troops of the State absent with the South¬ 
ern armies. Under the popular Southern theory of State rights 
such action would have compelled respect and obedience, and 
would at least have withdrawn the State from the insurrection. 
It was also understood that immediately on taking this action 


192 


THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE. 


the Legislature would dissolve, its members resign, and the 
whole government give way to such other legal organization 
as might be substituted. It will be remembered that all this 
occured previous to Lee’s surrender, and when it was of great 
importance that the Virginia troops should be withdrawn from 
the rebel armies. Undoubtedly the desire to thus seriously 
weaken the rebel cause had great weight in determining the 
course pursued by Mr. Lincoln, while the seeming sincerity and 
honesty of the advocates of the course wholly shut from his 
view the tricky scheme involved. 

But the first step of the intriguers in misconstruing the mean¬ 
ing of the President and presuming upon a sanction to call to¬ 
gether the Legislature of the State defeated all their projects. 
While an honest man is inclined to believe everybody else 
honest, a single deviation from integrity will arouse his fullest 
indignation and operate to forever destroy all confidence. So 
in this instance, Mr. Lincoln, when he saw the trick, quickly 
applied the remedy, by revoking the sanction given and with¬ 
drawing every scrap of writing that had passed. He could 
have no further conferences with such men. 

Such was the final effort of the lamented President to restore 
peace to the country. Fortunately the valor of our noble 
troops rendered other efforts unnecessary, and the war was 
terminated, not by negotiation or compromise, but by the stern 
decision of that arbitrament—the sword—to which the South 
had first appealed. 


GENERAL SHERMAN 


AND HIS 

GREAT CAaMP^AIG-ISTS, 


INCLUDING HIS HOLIDAY MARCHES THROUGH GEORGIA 
AND THE CAROLINAS. 


Wm. Tecumseh Sherman is of English descent; his ancestors, Puritans, 
left Dedham, England, in 1634. Arriving in America, the family settled 
in Connecticut. Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, who died in 1783, was of that family. Taylor Sherman, 
for many years judge in Connecticut, died in 1815, leaving a widow and 
three children, Charles R., Daniel, and Betsy. Charles R. married Mary 
Hoyt in 1810, and settled at Lancaster, how the county seat of Fairfield 
county, Ohio. Here he commenced the practice of law, and was finally 
elected Judge of the Superior Court in 1823. After serving in that capa¬ 
city for near six years, he was suddenly attacked with cholera while on 
the bench in the discharge of his official duties. He died in June, 1829, 
leaving a widow with eleven children. 

Wm. Tecumseh was born February 8th, 1820, and was named by his 
father, Tecumseh, in honor of the Indian chief of that name, who was 
killed, October 5th, 1813, at the battle of the Thames. At the age of 
nine years his mother gave him in charge of Thomas Ewing, a lawyer re¬ 
siding in Lancaster. Mr. Ewing was for many years a Whig politician 
of the Henry Clay school. After the Presidential election of 1840, he was 
chosen by Harrison, March 5th, 1841, Secretary of the Treasury. When 
young Sherman was about 16 years of age, Mr. Ewing having at his dis¬ 
posal the appointment of a military cadet for West Point, seeing the boy 
was developing talent for that kind of life, conferred it upon him. He 
graduated fifth in his class at that institution in June 1840, and was cre¬ 
ated 2d Lieutenant in the 3d U. S. Artillery, and sent to take part in the 
Florida War. Although peace was not made with the Indians of 

13 




194 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


that region until August 14th, 1843, yet he was made 1st Lieu¬ 
tenant in November, 1841, and sent to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s 
Island in Charleston Harbor. After remaining there some time he was 
sent to California in 1846 as a Frontier Guard, and continued there until the 
close of the Mexican war ; here he was promoted to a Captaincy. He now 
became Captain Sherman, and in 1850, after his return from California, 
married Miss Ellen B. Ewing, daughter of his benefactor. He w T as after 
this connected with the Commissary Department of the Army, but in 1853 
he resigned his commission, and retired to private life. 

Mr. Lucas, of St. Louis, Mo. was now about to establish a banking- 
house in San Francisco under the name of Lucas, Turner & Co. He gave 
the management of this house to Captain Sherman, in the capacity of bank¬ 
er, miner, and lawyer. He made and lost a large fortune in California. 
He returned from the Pacific coast and purchased a 160 acre farm near 
Topeka, Kansas, in 1857. While there he went into partnership with 
Hugh Ewing, Thomas Ewing, jr., and Daniel McCook, his two brother- 
in-laws, and McCook. Their law office was at Leavenworth, and the 
style of the firm was Ewing, Sherman & McCook. Having little taste for 
the legal profession, he was in 1860 offered, and accepted, at a yearly sal¬ 
ary of $5000 the Presidency of the Military School of Louisiana, situated 
at Alexandria, a town on Red River, about 350 miles above New Orleans. 

When he ascertained Louisiana was preparing to secede from the Union 
to join the rebellion, he sent the following patriotic letter to its governor : 

January 18th, 1861. 

Gov. Thomas 0. Moore, Baton Rouge, La : 

Sir, As I occupy a quasi military position under this State, I deem it 
proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was 
a State in the Union, and when the motto of the seminary was inserted in 
marble over the main door, By the liberality of the general Government of 
the United States. The Union Esto Perpetua. Recent events foreshadow a 
great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraws 
from the Federal Union I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old Con¬ 
stitution as long as a fragment of it survives ; and my longer stay here 
would be wrong in every sense of the word. In that event I beg you 
will send or appoint some authorized agent to take charge of the arms 
and munitions of war here, belonging to the State, or direct me what dis¬ 
position should be made of them. 

And, furthermore, as President of the Board of Supervisors, I beg you 
to take immediate steps to relieve me, as Superintendent, the moment 
the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account will I do any 
act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the old Government 
of the United States. With great respect, 

(Signed) W. T. Sherman. 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


195 


This letter was written only eight days before the State passed the 
ordinance of secession. His resignation was accepted, and his patriotic 
devotion left him without employment. He went immediately to St. Louis, 
Mo., where he was engaged by Mr. Lucas, his old banking friend, at a 
yearly salary of $2000 to act as superintendent of a city railroad. Duty 
to his Government had caused him to make the pecuniary sacrifice of 
$3000 a year before engaging in anything hostile against it. 

Patriotism afterwards induced him to offer his services and life, if need 
be, to put down its enemies. He repaired to Washington and offered 
his services to aid in putting down treason and traitors. General McDowell 
gave him a Colonelcy of the 13th Regular U. S. Infantry, dated May 14th, 
1861. He was on the 3d of August same year promoted to Brigadier 
General of Volunteers, and sent into Kentucky to assist Anderson, of 
Sumter fame, who then had command of that Department. In Novem¬ 
ber, 1862, with too many troops to be sacrificed, and too few to com¬ 
mence offensive operations, he requested Secretary Cameron who was then 
on a visit to his headquarters to send him more men. Cameron enquired of 
him how many troops he thought it would take to commence the offen¬ 
sive. Sherman then explained to him the difficulty of marching into 
Tennessee by divergent lines—one to Nashville and the other to East 
Tennessee—with forces largely outnumbered by the Rebel armies con¬ 
fronting him. On one of these lines he had 4,300 men to meet an oppos¬ 
ing force of 18,000. 

When asked by Secretary Cameron how many men were needed for the 
present campaign, he (Sherman) replied, “ Sixty thousand; and before 
you can reduce the South to subjugation you must have 200,000.” 

To this then apparently exorbitant demand the Secretary refused to 
comply ; and Sherman asked to be relieved, which Cameron did, and sent 
General Buell to take charge. 

Sherman now went to Benton Barracks near St. Louis, Mo. Here, 
sitting in the old Planter’s House with Cullum, the plan of the first cam¬ 
paign of Tennessee was canvassed and decided on. Sherman, in a 
speech to the people of St. Louis, says : 

“ General Halleck is the author of that first beginning, and I give him 
credit for it with pleasure. [Cheers.] Laying down his pencil upon the 
map, he said, ‘ There is the line and we must take it.’ The capture of 
the forts on the Tennessee river by the troops led by Grant followed. 
[Cheers.] These were the grand strategetic features of that first move¬ 
ment, and it succeeded perfectly.” 

‘ ‘ General Halleck’s plan went further—not to stop at his first line, which 
ran through Columbus, Bowling Green, crossing the river at Henry and 
Donelson, but to push on to the second line, which ran through Mem¬ 
phis and Charleston; but troubles intervened at Nashville, and delays 


196 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


followed; opposition to the last movement was made, and I myself was 
brought an actor on the scene.” 

General Grant was now preparing to move on Tort Donelson, and Sher¬ 
man was entrusted with superintending the forwarding of reinforcements 
and supplies, being stationed at Paducah, Kentucky. 

After the capture of Fort Donelson, he was put in command of the 5th 
Division of Grant’s army. And under the lead of General C. F. Smith he 
ascended the Tennessee river to Pittsburg Landing. Here and at Shiloh, 
the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, his coolness and bravery on the field has 
seldom been surpassed, having had four horses shot under him. He 
could be seen everywhere in the thickest of the fight with face black¬ 
ened with powder and besmeared with blood. Wounded himself, his 
daring in these battles will compare with Saladin, or equal Arabia’s mad 
prophet through the bloody conflicts of Eastern war. With eyes full 
of smoldering fire, when every one around him was excited, he was calm 
and collected. He looked the perfection of everything human. The in¬ 
carnation ideal of the God of War. 

“In person, ” says Major Nicholson, his aide-de-camp, “ he is nearly 
six feet in height, with a wiry, muscular, and not ungraceful frame. His 
age is only forty-seven years, but his face is furrowed with deep lines, 
indicating care and profound thought. With surprising rapidity, how¬ 
ever, these strong lines disappear when he talks with children and women. 
His eyes are of a dark brown color, and sharp and quick in expression. 
His forehead is broad and fair, sloping gently at the top of the head, 
which is covered with thick and light brown hair, closely trimmed. His 
beard and moustache, of a sandy hue, are also closely cut. His consti¬ 
tution is iron. Exposure to cold, rain, or burning heat seems to produce 
no effect upon his powers of endurance and strength. Under the most 
harassing conditions I have never seen him exhibit symptoms of fatigue. 
In the field he retires early, but at midnight he may be found pacing in 
front of his tent. He falls asleep as easily and quickly as a little child— 
by the roadside, upon the wet ground, on the hard floor, or when a battle 
rages near him. No circumstance of time or place seems to affect him. 
His mien is never clumsy or common place ; and when mounted upon re¬ 
view he appears in every way the great Soldier that he is.” 

General Halleck in his dispatch to the War Department says : “ It is the 
unanimous opinion here that Sherman saved the fate of the day on the 6th, 
and contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7th.” The Union 
forces engaged in these battles numbered 38,000 men. Sherman says : 

Grant was there, and others of us, all young at that time, and unknown 
men, but our enemy was old, and Sidney Johnston, whom all the officers 
remembered as a power among the old officers, high above Grant, myself, 
or anybody else, led the enemy on that battle-field, and I almost wonder 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


197 


how" we conquered. But as I remarked, it was a contest for manhood— 
man to man—soldier to soldier. We fought, and we held our ground, 
and therefore accounted ourselves victorious.” 

At General Halleck’s suggestion Sherman was again promoted to the 
rank of Major General of Volunteers, dated May 1st, 1862. 

Corinth, the junction of the Mobile, Ohio, Charleston and Memphis 
railroads, was a very important position, and the rebel authorities sent 
Beauregard to defend it. 

Although Sherman was yet in subordinate command, his division was 
in the advance ; and on the 17th, 21st, and 27th of May met the rebels on 
the road near Corinth and fought some desperate battles. His command 
was first inside the rebel intrenchments at Corinth on May 28th, and on 
the morning of the 29th the rebels evacuated and fired the town. 

Sherman was ordered to advance on Holly Springs, Miss., to take pos¬ 
session and destroy the railroad running from Jackson, Tennessee, to 
New Orleans. After burning long stretches of trestle-work on the Missis¬ 
sippi Central Railroad, he entered and took possession of Holly Springs 
June 20th. 

July 11th, 1862, General Halleck was ordered to Washington to the 
high position of Generalissimo. He re-organized the army, and placed 
General Grant in command of the department of West Tennessee. Mem¬ 
phis had surrendered June 6th; but the region was much infested with 
guerillas and contraband traders. General Grant sent Sherman to take 
command of this important position. He was here placed in com¬ 
mand of the 15th army corps ; and eventually ordered to sail for Friars 
Point, eighteen miles below Helena, Arkansas, to be in position to coop¬ 
erate with the main body of the troops against Vicksburg under General 
Grant, who were in the vicinity of the Tallahatchie River. In his order 
issued for the march, Sherman showed no mercy to speculators. The 
fleet consisted of one hundred and twenty-seven steamers, besides gun¬ 
boats. The General’s headquarters with his staff was on board the Forest 
Queen. On the 24th of December, 1862, the fleet was at Milliken’s Bend. 
On Christmas day the advance moved up the Yazoo River, about three 
miles above that portion of the stream called Old River. This was the 
position of the right. The left extended to within three miles of Haine’s 
Bluff. Sherman says : “After the Tallahatchie line was carried,Vicksburg 
was the next point. I went with a small and hastily collected force, and 
repeatedly endeavored to make a lodgment on the bluff between Vicks¬ 
burg and Haine’s Bluffs, while General Grant moved with his main army 
so as to place himself on the high plateau behind Vicksburg.” The bank 
of the Yazoo is about thirty feet high at the above place, covered with 
an undergrowth of willows, briers, thorns, vines, and live oaks twined 
together. It was a difficult place to land troops, and it was dark before 


198 


GENERAL S HERMAN AND 


all the troops got' ashore. Advancing from this position the right wing 
of the army of the Tennessee reached Vicksburg on Saturday morning, 
December 27th. Colonel Murphy, whom General Grant had commanded 
to hold Holly Springs, to prevent a raid on his rear, had cowardly sur¬ 
rendered the post and prevented Grant from meeting Sherman at the ap¬ 
pointed time and place. The line of battle was formed and Sherman or¬ 
dered a charge to be made on the enemy’s works which could be seen on 
the hillside. In the first charge these hardy Western boys had driven 
the rebels over a mile from their original position. The Surrender of 
Holly Springs was yet unknown to General Sherman, and he was expect¬ 
ing to hear the roar of General Grant’s artillery every moment. Sher¬ 
man remarks : “On the very day I had agreed to be there I was there. 
I waited anxiously for a co-operating force inland and below us, but they 
did not come ; and after I had made the assault I learned that the depot 
at Holly Springs had been broken up, and that General Grant had sent 
me word not to attempt it. But it was too late. Nevertheless, although 
we were unable to carry it at first, there were other things to be done.” 
The attack was renewed again on Monday, but without success. The 
strong natural position of the enemy, with their well-chosen and strongly 
built fortifications, and his immense force, were obstacles that could not 
be overcome. If Sherman’s men gained any advantage the tide was im¬ 
mediately turned against them by overwhelming numbers. General’s 
Morgan, Steel, Thayer and Blair’s divisions, with Hoffman’s and Griffin’s 
batteries drove the rebels from their rifle-pits, but it was found impos¬ 
sible to hold them in the charge up the hill. The Union army lost heavily ; 
General Blair had 1,825 men in his brigade; his loss was 642 killed, 
wounded, and captured. 

The dead were buried under a flag of truce, and General Sherman or¬ 
dered his troops to re-embark. About this time General McClernand ar¬ 
rived at the scene of action. He ranked General Sherman about one 
month in the date of his commission. He immediately ordered the with¬ 
drawal of the vessels from the Yazoo back again into the Mississippi 
river, and changed the title of the Army of Tennessee to Army of the 
Mississippi. General Sherman announces the change in command in an 
order on board of the Forest Queen, dated at Milliken’s Bend, January 
4th, 1863. He says : “ Ours was but part of a combined movement in 
which other.s were to assist. We were on time ; unforeseen contingencies 
must have delayed the others. A new commander is now here to lead 
you. He is chosen by the President of the United States, who is charged 
by the Constitution to- maintain and defend it, and he has the undoubted 
right to select his own agents. I know that all good officers and sol¬ 
diers will give him the same hearty supported- cheerful obedience they 
have heretofore given me.” 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


199 


On the morning of the 9th, the fleet with all on hoard, moved up the 
Mississippi. The White Cloud and City of Memphis carried the wounded 
and sick. Arkansas Post, lying nearly north of Vicksburg, was the object 
of the expedition. On January 11th, 1863, by the combined forces of 
General McClernand and Admiral Porter, the works were stormed, and 
^the place captured at one o’clock. Over 7,000 prisoners with all their 
stores, animals, and munitions of war were taken. 

General McClernand in changing the name of the army divided it into 
two corps. One commanded by General G. W. Morgan, and the other 
by General Sherman. The latter, although superseded, and somewhat 
chagrined at his previous unsuccess, contributed largely with his corps 
to secure the capture of the Post. 

Sherman having command of the 15th corps, was sent with it by Gen¬ 
eral Grant to make a feigned attack on Haine’s Bluff on the Yazoo River. 
Grant remarks : “ Sherman, I want you to move upon Haines’ Bluff to 
enable me to pass to the next fort below—Grand Gulf. ’ ’ This move was 
made to prevent the rebel commander at Vicksburg from sending troops 
to the assistance of Grand Gulf. With ten steamers, Sherman again moved 
his men, April 29th, from Milliken’s Bend up the Yazoo to Chickasaw 
Bayou, and from there with Admiral Porter and his gun-boats the next 
day the entire force pushed forward to the port. Porter opened the bom¬ 
bardment and continued it four hours. He then retired, and Sherman in 
full view of the rebels commenced landing his troops. After all had got 
ashore, the naval force again advanced and renewed the bombardment. 
The rebels now rallied all their available strength to resist an assault 
which they momentarily expected. The Rase was a success. Sherman 
says : “I did make the feint on Haines’s Bluff, and by that means Grant 
ran the blockade easily to Grand Gulf, and made a lodgment down there, 
and got his army up on the high plateau in the rear of Vicksburg, while 
the people north were beguiled into the belief that Sherman was again 
repulsed. But we did not repose confidence in everybody. Then fol¬ 
lowed the movement on Jackson, and the 4th of July placed us in posses¬ 
sion of that great stronghold, Vicksburg ; and then, as Mr. Lincoln said, 

‘ the Mississippi went unvexed to the sea.’ ” General Sherman with his 
force went from here to Young’s Point, and then to Hard Times on the 
Mississippi, distance about four miles from Grand Gulf. His column 
reached Hard Times on the morning of May 6th, and on the same even¬ 
ing commenced crossing the ferry to join General Grant. 

On the 12th of May, Sherman and McClernand’s forces fought the reb¬ 
els at Fourteen Mile Creek, while General McPherson defeated a strong 
force at Raymond. From these points all three commanders advanced 
on and drove the rebel General Johnston out of Jackson, Mississippi. 
McPherson and McClernand turned their troops and marched on Bolton, 


200 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


leaving Sherman at Jackson from which point, by order of General Grant 
May 16th, he was instructed to make a forced march of twenty miles 
and join the main force at Dalton. Sherman continued his march to 
Bridgeport, and reached there by noon the next day. 

From this point, May 18th, before dawn, he commenced his advance 
on Vicksburg. General Grant says of Sherman’s late movement: “ His 
demonstration at Haine’s Bluff in April to hold the enemy about Vicks¬ 
burg while the army was securing a foothold east of the Mississippi; 
his rapid marches to join the army afterwards ; his management at Jack- 
son, Mississippi, in the first attack ; his almost unequaled march from Jack- 
eon to Bridgeport, and the passage of the Black River ; his securing 
Walnut Hills on the 18th of May, attests his great merit as a soldier.” 

The position gained by Sherman on the 11th, was of great value in 
making the attack on Vicksburg. The place being too strong to be car¬ 
ried by assault, that mode was abandoned, and the place had to be ap¬ 
proached by a protracted siege, resulting in its capture July 4th, 1863. 
All this time General Johnston, with a large rebel force, had been 
threatening General Grant’s rear. He immediately sent a message to 
Sherman that he must whip Johnston fifteen miles from here. Johnston 
fell back upon Jackson. Sherman was now put in command of all the 
troops that was designated to look after Johnston, and the day fixed by 
General Grant to commence the grand assault on Vicksburg was July the 
6th. Pemberton having surrendered on the 4th, left Sherman free to 
move on the 6th against Johnston, who was preparing to make a stand 
at Jackson. 

On the 11th of July, Sherman’s soldiers discovered secreted in an old 
building, Jeff. Davis’s library and private correspondence. Among the 
latter were found letters of sympathy, encouragement and justification 
from many Northern traitors. A gold-headed cane bearing the inscrip¬ 
tion : To Jefferson Davis , from Franklin Pierce. These trophies were 
found by a foraging party in the country a few miles from Jackson, where 
Jeff, had stored them away for safety. 

On the 13th, midst a heavy fog, Johnston made an attack on Sherman’s 
defences, but was repulsed. On the morning of the 16th, the rebel 
bands were discoursing rebel airs on their works in face of our troops. 
On the next morning it was discovered that Johnston had sneaked out, 
leaving the town of Jackson in ruins. The 15th army corps now occu¬ 
pied about twenty miles along the Big Black River, for the purpose of 
preventing raids from the enemy. Many of the Union soldiers died while 
in this unhealthy region, amidst the sultry air and poisonous vapors. 
While encamped here Mrs. Sherman and family came from their Western 
home to enjoy for a short time the society of their protector. In this 
sickly region the child that bore his father’s name contracted a fever and 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


201 


died in Memphis on their return home. He was a promising boy, born in 
San Francisco, California, June 8th, 1854, and died in Memphis, Tennes¬ 
see, October 3d, 1863. A monument was erected by the 13th Regiment 
of Regular United States Infantry, over his remains. 

This was the regiment that General McDowell gave Sherman command 
of in the capacity of Colonel, in 1861. 

General Rosecrans, who had command of the Army of the Cumberland, 
was struggling to hold the region between Vicksburg and Charleston and 
at the battle of Chickamauga, 19th and 20th September, had been unsuc¬ 
cessful in his encouuter with Bragg, and retreated to Chattanooga. 

From Memphis to Chattanooga the distance is about 309 miles, and the 
Memphis and Charleston railroad connect them. Between the two places 
the Tennessee and Elk rivers cross the country, many of whose bridges 
were destroyed by the rebels. 

General Grant had been put in command of the departments of the Ohio, 
of the Cumberland, and of the Tennessee. General Thomas had succeeded 
Rosecrans in the Department of the Cumberland. General Grant arrived 
at Chattanooga October 23d, 1863. Although the rebels had assembled 
at Salem and Tuscumbia to prevent Sherman making a juncture with Rose¬ 
crans. At Colliersville and Cane Creek battles were fought, after which 
General Sherman organized at Iuka his new command, and on the its of 
November, with his army, crossed the Tennessee and passed on towards 
Elk river, here he was forced to take a circuitous route along the stream 
by way of Fayetteville, marking out the route for the different divisions 
of his army, he hastened on to Bridgeport, and telegraphed General Grant 
the position of his force, and on the 15th day of November leaving his 
army at Bridgeport, he arrived at Chattanooga at the headquarters of 
General Grant. 

On the 23d, three divisions unobservedly had obtained a position be¬ 
hind the hills opposite the mouth of the Chickamauga. The next morn¬ 
ing was darkened by a drizzling rain and fog. Befo/e day the pontoon 
bridge 300 feet long was commenced, and before three o’clock P.M. 
8000 troops were on the other side at the foot of Missionary Ridge. From 
this position they began to ascend the hill, completely surprising the en¬ 
emy. The entire hills were studded with rebel works, towering to the 
very clouds. So perfectly secure did Bragg feel, that he sent Long- 
street’s entire corps to engage Burnside at Knoxville. On the 24th, says 
Grant, the whole northern extremity of Missionary Ridge to near the Tun¬ 
nel was in Sherman’s possession. On the morning of the 25th he was 
again in the saddle. General Coarse was to have the advance, and just 
about sunrise his bugle sounded, forward. Sherman’s force was left on 
the outer spur of Missionary Ridge, with his right abreast of the Tunnel. 
His position served to draw the enemy’s fire from the assaulting parties 


202 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


on the hill. At 10 A.M. the fight raged furiously. General Coarse was 
severely wounded. Two brigades of reinforcements were sent up, but 
they became so crowded that they were compelled to fall away to the 
west of the hill. A heavy force of the enemy now emerged from under 
cover of the thick undergrowth on the right and rear of the supporting 
columns, which forced them to fall back in some confusion to the lower 
edge of the field, where they formed in good order. General Coarse, Col¬ 
onel Loomis, and General M. L. Smith still held the attacking column 
proper up at the crest. General Grant says they held their position, al¬ 
though advanced to the very rifle-pits, without wavering, when the two 
reserved brigades fell back. Sherman says, the enemy made a show of 
pursuit, but was caught in the flank by a well-directed fire of one brig¬ 
ade, and forced to seek cover behind the hill. Sherman was attacking 
the most northern and vital point of the enemy’s position. His stores were 
at Chickamauga, directly in Sherman’s rear, which kept them uneasy for 
their safety. On this account the enemy moved a large force to dislodge 
him. Sherman says column after column was streaming towards me. 
Grant kept his eye fixed on this key-point and sent a division to aid, but 
Sherman sent back word he could hold with his present force. Hooker 
had swept gallantly round the enemy’s left. When Grant saw the main 
effort of the enemy was directed against Sherman’s centre, or Missionary 
Ridge, he ordered General Thomas to strike their left flank. He broke 
in the centre of the long line. They turned, but too late ; while Thomas 
swept everything before him, from ridge to ridge. Bragg was over¬ 
whelmingly defeated, and his routed demoralized force driven down into 
the vallies of Georgia. This was on the 25th of November. The victory 
of Chattanooga was made complete. 

General Sherman at four o’clock, on the morning of the 26th, with part 
of General Howard’s eleventh corps was in pursuit. They came up to 
the enemy’s rear, and a fight was commenced which lasted till darkness 
closed in. On 27th, all the armies of Hooker and Thomas sharing in the 
pursuit, marching and fighting. Sherman now sent Howard to destroy 
the railroad between Dalton and Cleveland. This cut the communication 
between Bragg and Longstreet, and turned the flank of the enemy who 
were now engaging Hooker at Ringgold. The enemy had now been 
driven from this part of Tennessee. Sherman entered Ringgold and met 
Genera] Grant, who ordered him to leisurely return with his army back 
to Chattanooga. The next day Sherman tore up the railroad between 
Graysville and Ringgold to the Georgia State-line ; and General Grant 
consented that Sherman might make a circuitous route north, as far as 
the Hiawassee. This was in the latter part of November. Burnside, who 
was at Knoxville, sent Grant an urgent appeal for relief, stating that he 
could only hold out until December 3d. Grant had already ordered 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


203 


Granger to push on to the relief of Burnside, but the emergency was such 
that a more energetic commander was needed to save Knoxville from be¬ 
ing captured by Longstreet. Grant gave this expedition in charge of 
Sherman, including the troops under Granger’s command. Burnside had 
about 12000 men in the mountain town of Knoxville, which was about 84 
miles distant, and relief must come to them in three days. At daylight 
the army passed the Hiawassee and marched to Athens, fifteen miles on 
the 2d day of December. They reached London, 26 miles distant. Here 
they had a fight with the rebel General Vaughn, who they found strongly 
posted, building earthworks, with artillery. When Howard’s infantry 
arrived, it was night, and before morning Vaughn had run three locomo¬ 
tives and forty-eight cars into the Tennessee river, and evacuated the 
position, leaving four guns and a large quantity of provisions. Sherman 
now sent word to Colonel Long, cavalry commander, that Burnside must 
know in 24 hours of his approach. It was yet a distance of 40 miles to 
Knoxville. At daylight the cavalry was off; and the 15th corps was 
turned from Philadelphia to Morgentown ; but here the Tennessee was too 
deep to ford, and General Wilson constructed a bridge made partly from 
the houses of the late village of Morgentown, and by dark, December 
4th, the bridge was down, and the troops crossing. Long’s cavalry had 
reached Knoxville on the night of the 3d, and on the morning of the 5th 
Sherman received word from Burnside that all was well. On the same 
evening a staff officer from Burnside rode up to announce that Longstreet 
had raised the siege. 

It was in the early part of 1864 General Sherman planned a new and im¬ 
portant expedition, the object was nothing less than the capture of Mo¬ 
bile, Alabama. In maturing his plans he discovered, by verging a little 
from a direct line his army would pass through the richest corn and cotton 
fields of the South, which were known to be swarming with slaves. By 
taking this course he would not only give the enemy a severe blow at one 
of his important points of subsistence, but he would be enabled to get 
between Johnston’s army and Mobile, so as to assist Commodore Farra- 
gut in its capture, by hurling his legions against it from the land side. 
Having matured his plans, by his orders portions of the 16th and 17th ar¬ 
my corps, commanded respectfully by Hurlburt and the gallant McPher¬ 
son, left Vicksburg February 3d. General W. S. Smith who was also to 
take part, was to leave Memphis, Tennessee, with 8000 cavalry two days 
before, and was commanded to join Sherman about 150 miles from Vicks¬ 
burg, at Meridian. After crossing the Big Black River and moving along 
by Champion Hills and Clinton, Sherman was met at Jackson by Hurlburt 
and McPherson, who had taken different routes. Parts of his army were 
here united. And some resistance was offered by the rebels, at Line Creek ; 
skirmishing took place, but the enemy fell back, while Sherman pushed 


204 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


on, taking the towns of Quitman and Enterprise, reaching the Big Chunky 
River and Meridian, February 13th. 

It was at this place and time General Smith from Memphis, with 8000 
cavalry, was commanded to join General Sherman, but instead of doing 
so he had only left Memphis that day, February 13th, and instead of get¬ 
ting 8000, he only had procured 3000 cavalry. With this small force he 
was 13 days behind time, and 200 miles distant away. This failure com¬ 
pelled Sherman to abandon further prosecution of the Mobile part of the 
enterprise ; and after tearing up the Mississippi Central Railroad from 
Jackson to Meridian, and destroying the rebel machine shop, then in full 
blast at the latter place, and dispersing the rebel force stationed there, he 
thought it hazardous to go further without cavalry and returned. Although 
all was not accomplished anticipated at the outset, on account of General 
Smith’s failure, yet glorious results were achieved in liberating about 
8000 slaves, who followed the army on its return, like the Exodus of 
the Israelites from Egypt, taking with them the costly vehicles and luxu¬ 
ries of their terror-stricken masters, who fled at Sherman’s approach. 
Four thousand rebel prisoners, thousands of horses, mules, and cattle 
were brought away, and over $2,000,000 worth of rebel property de¬ 
stroyed. The expedition returned to Vicksburg with trifling loss ; (while 
Sherman went to New Orleans on the gunboat Diana) having been 
absent about a month. While at Meridian, February 13th, Sherman con¬ 
gratulated his troops in these words : 

‘ ‘ The General commanding conveys his congratulations and thanks to 
the officers and men composing this command for the most successful ac¬ 
complishment of one of the great problems of the war. Meridian the great 
railway centre of the southwest is now in our possession, and by industry 
and hard work can be rendered useless to the enemy, and deprive him of 
the chief source of supply to his armies. Secrecy in plan and rapidity 
of execution accomplish the best results of war ; and the General com¬ 
manding assures all that by followig their leaders fearlessly and with 
confidence, they will in time reap the reward so dear to us all—a peace 
that will never again be disturbed in our country by a discontented mi¬ 
nority.’ ’ 

While Sherman’s men were resting from the “ big raid,” as he called 
his Meridian expedition, the President, in accordance with a law previ¬ 
ously passed by Congress, creating the office of Lieutenant-General, con¬ 
ferred the honor of it upon Major-General Grant. This order dated 
March 12th, 1864. 

First —At his own request, relieved General Halleck, and assigned Gen¬ 
eral Grant to the command of the armies of the United States ; headquar¬ 
ters of the army in Washington. Grant’s headquarters in the field. 

Second —General Halleck is made Chief of Staff of the army under the 




HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 205 

direction of the Secretary of War and the Lieutenant-General command¬ 
ing, whose orders Halleck was also to respect and obey. 

Third ,—Assigned the command of the military division of the Missis¬ 
sippi to Major-General W. T. Sherman, composed of the Department of 
the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Arkansas. 

Fourth —gave command of the department and army of the Tennessee 
to Major-General J. B. McPherson. 

General Sherman had now under his command about the 1st of May, 
1864: 

Army of the Cumberland. — Gen. Thomas commanding. 

Infantry,. 54,568 

Artillery,. 2,377 

Cavalry,.3,828 

Total,. 60,773 

Guns,. 130 

Army of the Tennessee. — Maj. Gen. McPherson commanding. 

Infantry,. 22,437 

Artillery,. 1,404 

Cavalry,. 624 

Total,. 24,465 

Guns,. 96 

Army of the Ohio. — Maj. Gen. Schofield commanding. 

Infantry,.11,183 

Artillery,. 679 

Cavalry,.1,679 

Total,. 13,541 

Guns,. 28 

The entire force numbered 98,779 troops, and 254 guns. 

On May 6th the armies were located as follows : That of the Cumber¬ 
land at or near Ringgold, Georgia ; that of the Tennessee at Gordon’s 
Mill on the Chickamauga ; and that of the Ohio near Red Clay on the 
Georgia line near Dalton. This town is situated on the railroad between 
Chattanooga and Atlanta with Ringgold to the northwest. 

GENERAL SHERMAN ASSUMES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

Thus stood the forces when Sherman took command, and around him 
stood Generals McPherson, Hooker, Hurlburt, Thomas, Logan, Schofield 
and Howard. Sherman having been foiled in his designs on Mobile, by 







206 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


the failure of General Smith to cooperate, now that he was invested with 
supreme command, at first contemplated an advance on Richmond by 
way of Lynchburg, Virginia, making Knoxville, in East Tennessee, his 
base. Every military man could see that Lynchburg was the key to the 
rebel position of the East. But Sherman saw that with 100,000 men it 
would be impossible to protect his long line of supplies, most of which 
came from Louisville, Kentucky, and at the same time protect Middle 
Tennessee from invasion. Longstreet, the rebel commander, who had 
been wintering his army in East Tennessee, hearing General Schofield was 
making preparations to move on Knoxville, and believing it only the ad¬ 
vance of Sherman’s entire force, withdrew from East Tennessee before 
the campaigning season commenced. Sherman, therefore, gave up the 
contemplated Richmond enterprise ; and as this left Johnston in command 
of the only large rebel army in the southwest, he resolved to pursue him 
into Georgia. 

The grand advance in pursuit of Johnston commenced about the 7th of 
May. He was strongly fortified at Buzzard Roost, with his outpost 
extending to Tunnel Hill. General Thomas drove the rebels from this 
place on the 7th, and on the 11th, under the entire rebel fire, occupied 
Buzzard Roost. The former is a narrow gorge or pass in the Chatoogato 
Mountains, flanked on one side by Rocky Faced Ridge (not unlike the 
Palisades of the Hudson.River), and on.the other by the greater but less 
percipitous elevation called John’s Mountain. This gorge was com¬ 
manded on the Dalton side by an ampitheater of hills, which, as well as 
Rocky Face and John’s Mountain, was crowned with batteries, lined with 
infantry, and terraced by sharp shooters. 

The only pass through, the mountain was the railroad and wagon road, 
and Johnston had dammed a neighboring mountain stream and conveyed 
it into the gorge so that the water over the wagon and railroad track 
was from eight to ten feet deep. In addition, piles were driven down filling 
the defile, which made an additional barrier. It was so strong a position, 
that the rebels felt perfectly secure, as they believed it unassailable. 
Fighting had commenced at Tunnel Hill, and after two days reconnoissance 
and sharp skirmishing, proved to General Sherman that an attack in front 
would be attended with too great a waste of life, he resolved that the pass 
must be turned, in looking about how to do it, he discovered a pass 
about fifteen miles to the southwest called Snake Creek Gap. Rising on 
one side is Rocky Face, with its flint sides, on the other, Oak Knob. 
The deep dark forests concealed the movements of the troops under 
General Morgan, and others kept the rebels in constant dread of an 
assault. 

A corporal of Company I, sixteenth Illinois, broke from the line (so 
says General Morgan,) and under cover of projecting ledges, got up 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


207 


within twenty eet of a squad of rebels on the summit. Taking shelter 
from the sharpshooters, he called out: 

“ I say rebs, don’t you want to hear Old Abe’s Amnesty Proclamation 
read ?” 

Yes, was the unanimous cry, give us the ape’s Proclamation. 

“ Attention!” commanded the corporal, and in a loud clear voice he 
read it; when he arrived at that part where the negro was referred to, 
the rebs cried out, none of your d—d abolitionism, look out for rocks, 
which they began to shower down over his hiding place. Do you want 
to hear it again cried the corporal; not to-day you bloody yank, now 
crawl down, and we wont shoot, was the response. 

General Howard, in an elevated position on Rocky Face Ridge, seeing a 
squad of rebels upon a projecting ledge below. In the absence of hand 
grenades, the General, tired of gazing at them, lit the fuses of a few 
shells and dropped them down into the center of the group. 

The flank movement had now commenced in earnest, led on by Gene¬ 
ral McPherson with the 15th and 16th corps, and Garrard’s division of 
cavalry, supported by General Thomas with the 14th and 20th corps, 
while General Howard and Schofield, with the 4th and 23d corps, and 
Stoneman’s division of cavalry amused the enemy in front. Suddenly 
General Johnston discovering that his strong position had been flanked, 
and his means of communication in danger of being cut off, abandoned 
this Gibraltar of the South, and fell back upon Ressaca. This town is 
situated in GordonUounty, Georgia, on the north bank of the Coosawattee 
River which flows southwest, changing its name to the Oostalantee, and 
joins Etowah at Rome, the two forming the Coosa, which joins the 
Tallapoosa, forms the Alabama, and flows into the Gulf of Mobile. 
Ressaca is due south, about fifty-six miles by railroad from Chattanooga, 
and eighty-two miles by rail from Atlanta. 

The pursuit continued, and for three days the sound of battle could be 
heard among the hills, until Sherman on the 15th and 16ih of May defeat¬ 
ed the rebels, capturing six trains going south for supplies ; 1200 prison¬ 
ers and eight guns, and a large quantity of stores. The rebels in their 
retreat from Ressaca destroyed the railroad bridge on the Western and 
Atlanta Railroad, 600 feet long. 

From this position Johnston again fell back, directly pursued by Gene¬ 
ral Thomas, while McPherson and Schofield took different routes. The 
conflict raging both by night and by day, the darkest hours of midnight 
frequently lit up by the flame of the guns. Over mountain and stream 
the brave Union army bore down on the retreating rebels. When near 
Dallas, while the troops were engaged in slumber, they were awakened 
by melodious notes of Old Hundred, given forth by one of the brigade 
bands ; soldiers employed in preparing their meals listened for a mo- 


208 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


ment, when all at once the bands of brigade after brigade struck in and 
made the hills resound with the music ; when they ceased to reverber¬ 
ate, five thousand voices were raised in praise of God from whom all bless¬ 
ings flow. After breakfast the soldiers of many hard fought battles 
broke camp and fell into line. General Thomas’ troops, with the fearless 
Hooker in advance, was sweeping towards Dallas, when the enemy 
crossed their path. The action of New Hope Church came off here. 
General Stoneman captured from the Third Texas Cavalry a black flag 
with a skeleton figured upon it, together with death's head and cross bones. This 
Texas company is said to have carried this flag from the first. Our boys 
after this took no prisoners from the Third Texas cavalry. 

General McPherson’s corps did the principal part of the fightifig at 
Dallas. The loss of the rebels amounted to about 5,500 killed, wounded 
and prisoners. The month of May had closed with the battle at Dallas. 
The troops had been pressing hard down on the rebel force, fighting and 
marching from Chattanooga, now about one hundred miles. It was a her¬ 
culean task ; but the glorious army of the Union kept unbroken ranks. A 
battle was fought on the 21st of June. It is not our province to give all 
the skirmishes in the running fight, but only such as appeared directly 
fruitful of results. The battle of the 21st revealed the outposts of John¬ 
ston’s new and strong position at Lost Mountain, Pine Hill, and Kenesaw 
Mountain. Here he was found intrenched on these bold poaks connected 
together by a line of ridges and his lines closely circumscribed by ours. 
No place were they more than a musket shot apart. This strong posi. 
tion was only twenty-six miles north of Atlanta. Johnston’s right lested 
on Kenesaw Mountain, on the railroad, four miles north of Marietta ; his 
left on Lost Mountain, some six miles west of Kenesaw. Between these 
two formidable ridges his forces had been gradually forced back from 
a triangle with the apex towards us, until his line was a faint crescent, 
his center still being slightly advanced right, left, and center their po¬ 
sition was closely invested. Our troops shed parallel after parallel, un¬ 
til the country in the rear was furrowed with rifle-pits and abatis and 
scared with a labyrinth of roads. To add to our difficulties, this region 
was completely covered with primitive forests, and as incredible as it 
seems, after two days’ skirmishing, we developed the enemy’s position. 

A country robbed of its substance by its self-styled defenders, unable 
to even feed its non-combatants who depended upon the Union army for 
food which had to be carried through a hostile country over a distance 
of two hundred miles on a single-track railroad. This was the situation 
when the mighty task of dislodging Johnston’s rebel army from its last 
strong position was undertaken. An officer writing from the spot re¬ 
marks : “The ridge in front of Kenesaw commences about Wallace’s 
House on the Burnt Hickory and Marietta road, and extends thence across 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


209 


the railroad behind Noonday Creek about two miles in an east-by-north 
direction. Lost Mountain and Kenesaw are about eleven hundred feet 
high; Pine Hill and Brushy Hill about four hundred feet high, and the 
ridges everywhere about one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, or 
about the same as, and, in fact, not very dissimilar to Missionary Ridge 
at Chattanooga. The enemy was strongly intrenched behind log barri¬ 
cades, protected by earth thrown against them, with a ditch, formidable 
abatis, and in many places a chevaux-de-frise of sharpened fence-rails 
besides. Their intrenchments were well protected by thick traverses, 
and at frequent intervals arranged with emplacements and embrasures 
for field-guns. The thickness of this parapet was generally six to eight 
feet at top on the infantry line, and from twelve to fifteen feet thick at 
the top, where field-guns were posted, or where fire from our artillery 
was anticipated. The amount of digging and intrenching that Johnston’s 
army had done is almost incredible. General Sherman’s tactics resulted 
in wresting Lost Mountain, Pine Hill, the ridge in front of Kenesaw, and 
Brushy Hill from the enemy, and forcing back his two wings, Kenesaw 
Mountain operating as a sort of hinge, until his left was behind Olley’s 
Creek, and his right behind the stream which flows between the houses 
named on the map as McAffe and Wiley Roberts. Kenesaw Mountain 
then became the projecting fortress of the defensive line, the wings be¬ 
ing turned backward from it. It is a rocky eminence, rather precipi¬ 
tous, thickly wooded, and crowned with batteries. 

“ Our respective lines were about eight or nine miles in length, from 
six hundred to seven hundred yards distant from each other, and strong¬ 
ly intrenched. Skirmishing went on incessantly, and artillery duels oc¬ 
curred two or three times daily. The enemy at different times made 
some dozen or more assaults, sometimes getting within fifty yards of our 
intrenchments, but were always repulsed, and generally with heavy loss 
to them. To gain certain positions, we opened a heavy artillery fire 
upon their whole line, pressed their two flanks heavily, and made as¬ 
saults in two places upon their centre. The assaults were unsuccessful; 
but the Twenty-third Corps, upon their extreme right, gained important 
advantages of position.” 

Wrote another: “We fancy out here that the over-expectant loyal 
public are disappointed at the seemingly slow progress of our cause in 
this department. It is only necessary to state that the immense amount 
of supplies required for an army of this size, to be transported a dis¬ 
tance of over two hundred miles through the enemy’s country, with a 
single-track railroad, is a gigantic undertaking. As for subsisting upon 
the country,that is out of the question, the inhabitants themselves de¬ 
pending upon the charity of the ‘ ruthless invaders’ for daily sustenance. 
Forage, ordnance stores, and commissary supplies, must all flow through 

14 


210 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


this single artery with lightning rapidity, if we would replenish these 
stores as fast as exhausted. Nothing but the most thorough organiza¬ 
tion and complete system, with great energy in the various departments, 
could ever have prevented our troops from suffering for the want of food 
and clothing. The public can never appreciate the innumerable natural 
obstacles that have embarassed the operations of this unflinching army. 
The truly loyal do not demand any such explanations as these, for with 
such leaders as Grant and Sherman, apprehension is groundless ; but of 
late the Copperhead press, not content with misrepresenting and belit¬ 
tling General Grant’s victorious advance toward the rebel capital, sneer 
at General Sherman’s generalship, and insinuate already, in the face of 
brilliant successes achieved, that the ‘ On to Atlanta’ movement is a 
failure. 

“ Standing upon the martial-crowned top of Pine Mountain, amid the 
fluttering of those peculiar flags used by the Signal Corps, we learned 
that from this eminence were transmitted, in those mysterious signals, 
all the movements of the enemy, and such operations of our army as were 
necessary. In front of you stands the defiant, frowning Kenesaw, with 
its thick woods concealing the rebel batteries from view that line its 
steep sides, while five or six miles west of Kenesaw, Lost Mountain lifts 
its sugar-loaf crest to the sky, solitary and alone, looming up against the 
gorgeously-tinted clouds that deck the heavens. Just before you, look¬ 
ing south, can be discerned the suberbs of Marietta, with the Georgia 
Military Institute standing out prominently in the picture. Gazing down 
the steep declivity into the thickly-wooded vales which lie at the spec¬ 
tator’s feet, a magnificent panorama of natural beauty is unfurled. So 
close are the lines of the contending armies, that the dense volumes of 
smoke from their camp fires roll up united, but hang in portentous clouds 
over friend and foe. 

“ While wrapt in silent admiration, mixed with a deep sense of awe 
at the wild and romantic scene before me, the bands encamped in the 
valley which encircles the base of the mountain, struck up the ‘ John 
Brown’ or ‘ Glory Hallelujah Chorus,’ the echoes of which vibrated, re¬ 
echoed, and, finally, as the sun’s departing rays began to fade from the 
horizon, its pathetic notes died away, or mingled with the rattle of mus¬ 
ketry which flashed along our skirmish line. I can never forget the pe¬ 
culiar impression photographed upon my mind by the swelling of this 
historical anthem of Freedom’s first battle, as it grandly sailed over Pine 
Mountain. My reverie was soon disturbed by the sudden roar of many 
batteries belching out their savage peals with fearful rapidity from both 
sides, and for several minutes quite an artillery duel was indulged in, 
interspersed with short rolls of musketry. It was curious to watch the 
rebel guns, as the smoke lazily curled from the cannon’s mouth, while 
the solid shot whizzed, and shells shrieked over our breastworks.” 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


211 


* ‘ Among the incidents of this part of the great campaign was a dress 
parade of the rebels on the top of Kenesaw Mountain. Our lines were 
so near, that the display was distinctly visible and audible. Below the 
regiment, whose bayonets gleamed in the rays of the setting sun, were 
the bristling rifle-pits. A courier suddenly dashed up to the adjutant, 
and handed him a despatch from General Johnston, announcing that 
General Sherman had brought his army so far south, that his line of 
supplies was longer than he could hold ; that he was too far from his 
base—just where their commanding general wished to get him ; that a 
part of their army would hold the railroad, thirty miles north of the 
Etowah ; and that the great railroad bridge at Allatoona had been com¬ 
pletely destroyed ; that in a few days Sherman would be out of supplies, 
because he could bring no more trains through by the railroad. They 
were urged to maintain a bold front, and in a few days the Yankees 
would be forced to retreat. Breathless silence evinces the attention 
which every word of the order receives, as the adjutant reads. Cheers 
are about to be given, when, hark ! loud whistles from Sherman’s cars, 
at Big Shanty, interrupt them. The number of whistles increase. Alla¬ 
toona, Ackworth, and Big Shanty depots resound with them. Supplies 
have arrived. The effect can easily be imagined. The illustration was 
so apt, the commentary so appropriate, that it was appreciated at the 
instant. ‘ Bully for the base of supplies! ’ ‘ Bully for the lon^ line ! ’ 
1 Three cheers for the big bridge !’ ‘ Here’s your Yankee cars!’ ‘ There’s 
Sherman’s rations!’ Bedlam was loose along their line for a short time. 

“ There was a tree in front of General Herron’s division of the Fifteenth 
Army Corps, to which was given the name of fatal tree. Seven soldiers 
in succession, who hid behind it to shoot, were killed. Then a board 
was put on the tree, on which was chalked ‘dangerous.’ The rebels 
soon shot this sign to pieces, when a sergeant took his position there, 
and in less than two minutes two Minnie balls pierced his body, making 
the eighth victim of rebel bullets—a tragical item in war’s dread work. 

THE BATLLE OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN. 

General Hooker was on the right and front, while General Howard was 
on the left and front. June 14th a heavy cannonading commenced ; the 
fire of the artillery couM be heard for miles. Bishop General Polk, one 
of the main stays in the rebel army fell in the early part of this engage¬ 
ment. On the same night the rebels abandoned Pine Mountain. The 
gallant Thomas and Schofield immediately advanced, and soon found the 
foe strongly intrenched along a ridge of rocky hills, running from Kene¬ 
saw to Lost Mountain. General McPherson crowded the rebel lines on 
the left, and on the 17th, just as General Sherman was about to order a 


212 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


charge the enemy deserted his breastworks that connected Lost with 
Kenesaw Mountain. Onward the victorious troops pursued until among 
the Kenesaw peaks they discovered the front lines of the enemy, the 
outer lines having fallen back to cover Marietta and the railroad to the 
Chattahoochie. General Hooker led the charge against this rebel strong¬ 
hold. New York and Illinois regiments, here together, freely shed their 
patriotic blood on this mountain top. The 27th Illinois regiment suffered 
severely. Michael Delaney, its color-bearer, in advance of his regiment, 
after being wounded, leaped on the enemy's breastworks, holding aloft 
the starry banner of his country. While thus standing on the enemy’s 
works, two rebels approached him on each side and thrust their bayo¬ 
nets into his already wounded body. While thus mortally wounded, he 
clasped the flag to his breast and bore it back in safety to his comrades, 
where he soon after bled to death. On the night of July 2d, General 
McPherson threw his army in a position to threaten Nickajack Creek and 
Turner’s Ferry across Chattahoochie. On the morning of the 3d, Kene¬ 
saw was abandoned : our skirmishers could be seen on the mountain top. 
General Thomas’ whole line was then moved forward to the railroad and 
turned south in pursuit of the retreating enemy. Marietta was entered 
at half past eight, A. M., just as the enemy’s cavalry evacuated the 
place. Johnston had thrown up intrenchments across the road at 
Smyrna, camp-meeting ground, five miles from Marietta, but from this 
strong position again falls back. 

On the 4tli of July the entire line of the enemy’s pits were captured. 
The next morning he had abandoned Nickajack Creek and Turner’s Ferry. 
General Sherman now moved his army to the Chattahoochie, General 
Thomas’s left flank resting on it, near Price’s Ferry ; General McPherson’s 
right at the mouth of Nickajack ; and General Schofield in the reserve, 
while the enemy lay behind a line of unusual strength, covering the rail¬ 
road and pontoon bridges, and beyond the Chattahoochie. From the 
heights on the banks of this stream could be seen the forests that surround 
Atlanta; the spires of the churches and public buildings that adorned the 
great city are distinctly visible. On the 4th, the curiosity was so great 
to see Atlanta, many of the soldiers straggled from their regiments and 
climbed the hill-sides to get a glimpse at the promised place. 

On the 10th, Sherman held possession of the country north and west of 
the river. The rebel army was intrenched on the heights overlooking 
the valley of Peach Tree Creek, his right beyond the Augusta road to 
the east, and his left well toward Turner’s Ferry on the Chattahoochie ; 
general distance from Atlanta about four miles. The Richmond authori¬ 
ties becoming disgusted with General Johnston’s habitual retreating 
which he had continued from Dalton ; believing his policy created dis¬ 
trust in the rebel cause, Jeff Davis removed him, and appointed General 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


213 


Hood to take command. Johnston’s policy had been to intrench and 
await attack; but Hood now determined to inaugurate different tactics, 
that of attack, which he boldly commenced on Sherman’s left wing, 
but every effort of the new general proved unavailing, as Sherman 
continued not only to advance, but to close in upon Atlanta ; his line, on 
July 22d, formed a general circle of about two miles radius. Hood who 
had found that Sherman could not be driven back, began to occupy a 
line of finished redoubts which had been prepared for more than a year, 
covering all the roads leading into Atlanta. Sherman remarks : “We 
found him also busy in connecting these redoubts with curtains strength¬ 
ened by rifle trenches, abatis, and chevaux-de-frise.” 

“ General McPherson, who had advanced from Decatur, continued to 
follow substantially the railroad, with the Fifteenth Corps, General Lo¬ 
gan ; the Seventeenth, General Blair, on its left; and the Sixteenth, 
General Dodge, on its right; but as the general advance of all the armies 
contracted the circle, the Sixteenth Corps, General Dodge, was thrown 
out of line by the Fifteenth connecting on the right with General Scho¬ 
field near the Howard House. General McPherson, the night before, 
had gained a hill to the south and east of the railroad, where the Seven¬ 
teenth Corps had, after a severe fight, driven the enemy, and it gave 
him a most commanding position, within easy view of the very heart of 
the city. He had thrown out working parties to it, and was making 
preparations to occupy it in strength with batteries. The Sixteenth 
Corps, General Dodge, was ordered from right to left to occupy this 
position and make it a strong general left flank. General Dodge was 
moving by a diagonal path, or wagon track, leading from the Decatur 
road in the direction of General Blair’s left flank. General McPherson 
remained with me until near noon, when some reports reaching us that 
indicated a movement of the enemy on that flank, he mounted and rode 
away with his staff. I must here also state that the day before I had 
detached General Garrard’s cavalry to go to Covington, on the Augusta 
road, forty-two miles east of Atlanta, and from that point to send detach¬ 
ments to break the two important bridges across the Yellow and Ulco- 
fauhatchee Rivers, tributaries of Ocmulgee, and General McPherson had 
also left his wagon train at Decatur under a guard of three regiments, 
commanded by Colonel, now General Sprague. Soon after General Mc¬ 
Pherson left me at the Howard House, as before described, I heard the 
sounds of musketry to our left rear—at first mere pattering shots, but 
soon they grew in volume, accompanied with artillery, and about the 
same time the sound of guns was heard in the direction of Decatur. No 
doubt could long be entertained of the enemy’s plan of action, which 
was to throw a superior force on our left flank, while he held us with 
his forts in front, the only question being as to the amount of force he 


214 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


could employ at that point. I hastily transmitted orders to all points of 
our centre and right to press forward, and to give full employment to 
all the enemy in his lines, and for General Schofield to hold as large a 
force in reserve as possible, awaiting developments. Not more than 
half an hour after General McPherson had left me, viz., about 12)^ p. m. 
of the 22d, his adjutant-general, Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, rode up and 
reported that General McPherson was either dead, or a prisoner ; that he 
had ridden from me to General Dodge’s column, moving as heretofore de¬ 
scribed, and had sent off nearly all his staff and oderlies on various er¬ 
rands, and himself had passed into a narrow path or road that led to the left 
and rear of General Giles A. Smith’s division, which was General Blair’s 
extreme left; that a few minutes after he had entered the woods a sharp 
volley was heard in that direction, and his horse had come out riderless, 
having two wounds. The suddenness of this terrible calamity would 
have overwhelmed me with grief, but the living demanded my whole 
thoughts. I instantly despatched a staff officer to General John A. Lo¬ 
gan, commanding the Fifteenth Corps, to tell him what had happened ; 
that he must assume command of the Army of the Tennessee, and 
hold stubbornly the ground already chosen. 

“ But among the dead was Major-General McPherson, whose body was 
recovered and brought to me in the heat of battle, and I had it sent, in 
charge of his personal staff, back to Marietta, on its way to his northern 
home. He was a noble youth, of striking personal appearance, of the 
highest professional capacity, and with a heart abounding in kindness, 
that drew to him the affections of all men. His sudden death devolved 
the command of the Army of the Tennessee on the no less brave and 
gallant General Logan, who nobly sustained his reputation and that of his 
veteran army, and avenged the death of his comrade and commander.” 

General Sherman in a letter (dated in the field near Atlanta, July 30th, 
1864) to a Massachusetts State Agent, who had written him from 
Chattanooga, enquiring where in the rebel states would be the best to 
organize colored troops ? Sherman sarcastically advises him that it 
would be a waste of time and money to open rendezvous in Northern 
Georgia, as he has not seen an able bodied man white or black, that was 
not in the Union or rebel armies. But advised him to start recruiting 
depots at Macon, Georgia, and Columbus Miss.; Salem, Montgomery, and 
Mobile, Alabama ; and Columbus, Milledgeville, and Savannah Georgia ; 
the above places were, at the date of Sherman writing, all under rebel 
rule. He says: 

“ You speak of the impression going abroad that I am opposed to the 
organization of colored regiments. My opinions are usually very posi¬ 
tive, and there is no reason why you should not know them. Though 
entertaining profound reverence for our Congress, I do doubt their wis¬ 
dom in the passage of this law : 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


215 


“ 1st. Because civilian agents about an army are a nuisance. 

“ 2d. The duty of citizens to fight for their country is too sacred a one 
to be peddled off by buying yp the refuse of other States. 

“ 3d. It is unjust to the brave soldiers and volunteers who are fighting, 
as those who compose this army do, to place them on a par with the 
class of recruits you are after. 

“ 4th. The negro is in a transition state, and is not the equal of the 
white man. 

“ 5th. He is liberated from his bondage by the act of war ; and the 
armies in the field are entitled to all his assistance and labor and fighting 
in addition to the proper quotas of the States. 

“ 6tli. This bidding and bantering for recruits, white and black, has 
delayed the reenforcement of our armies at the times when such reen¬ 
forcements would have enabled us to make our successes permanent. 

“ 7th. The law is an experiment which, pending war, is unwise and 
unsafe, and has delayed the universal draft, which I firmly believe will 
become necessary to overcome the wide-spread resistance offered us ; 
and I also believe the universal draft will be wise and beneficial; for 
under the providence of God it will separate the sheep from the goats, 
and demonstrate what citizens will fight for their country, and what will 
only talk. 

“ No one will infer from this that I am not a friend to the negro, as 
well as the white race. I contend that the treason and rebellion of the 
master freed the slave, and the armies I have commanded have con¬ 
ducted to safe points more negroes than those of any general officer in 
the army ; but I prefer negroes for pioneers, teamsters, cooks, and 
servants ; others gradually to experiment in the art of the soldier, begin¬ 
ning with the duties of local garrisons, such as we had at Memphis, 
Vicksburg, Natchez, Nashville, and Chattanooga ; but I would not draw 
on the poor race for too large a proportion of its active, athletic young 
men, for some must remain to seek new homes and provide for the old 
and young, the feeble and helpless. These are some of my peculiar 
notions, but I assure you they are shared by a large proportion of our 
fighting men.” 

Headley remarks: “The honesty, directness, and philanthrophy of 
these views, will command respect from those who opposed them, and 
would raise an army of emancipated slaves. With him it was not con¬ 
tempt of the negro, but the scorn of a timid, easy policy by the North, 
while, exactly the opposite course was taken by the South.” 

General Sherman having ordered from Chattanooga four rifled-cannon, 
whose calibre was 4)^ inches, on August 10th the work of destruction 
commenced. Night and day these new messengers of peace continued 
to throw their globes of fire into the very heart of Atlanta, kindling con- 


216 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


flagration on every side. This was the strongest position that could be 
found to impede and check Sherman’s march to the sea. Johnston was 
considered unequal to the task of its defence. Thus Hood, being fool¬ 
hardy, and reckless of human life, was chosen to command. 

General Stoneman, having gone on a cavalry raid to tear up the Macon 
railroad, being suddenly captured, the rebel General Wheeler appeared 
before Dalton. Approaching the town which was being held by a garri¬ 
son of 400 men under Colonel Seibold, Wheeler demanded its surrender, 
which was refused : Seibold alleging he was placed there to hold, and 
not to surrender the place. General Steadman arrived with sufficient 
force from Chattanooga in time to prevent the little garrison from being 
captured, and the rebels were forced to retreat. 

Sherman now gave orders that the sick and all surplus wagons and en¬ 
cumbrances of every kind should be sent back to the intrenched position 
near the river Bridge. This reduced the number of wagons to 3000, and 
ambulances to 1000 ; and on the night of August 25tli the army of the 
Tennessee moved to the West Point railroad with orders to spend one day 
in destroying it. General Howard moved on to the right towards Jones¬ 
boro. General Thomas had the centre, whose goal was Conch’s, on the 
Decator and Fayettville road. General Schofield had the extreme left. 
General Hood observing Sherman sending his long wagon train to the 
rear, thought it an indication of a retreat, and began to grow merry. By 
this strategy Sherman divided the rebel forces at Jonesboro and Atlanta, 
placing the Union army like a wedge between them. 

“ During the night of the 28th, the rest of the army being well under 
way, the Twenty-Third Corps withdrew and followed the general move¬ 
ment toward the Macon road ; General Schofield timing his movements 
with the corps further on the left, which had the longer arc of the circle to 
traverse. The general line of march for the Twenty-Third corps was 
toward the junction of the two railroads at East Poi: t, the Third division, 
under General Cox, holding the advance, and with the Second Division, 
under General Hascall, occasionally erecting temporary works to guard 
against threatened attacks from the enemy, who were on the alert against 
this demonstration. On the 31st, these two divisions effected a junction 
with General Stanley, of the Fourth Corps. General Hascall’s division 
went into position to guard the left towards East Point, and General Cox 
pushed forward toward the Macon road, which was reached by two oi 
three o’clock P.M., General Stanley, of the Fourth Corps, striking at about 
the same time. The troops of these two corps at once set to work for¬ 
tifying, while details were sent out, which destroyed the track for miles. 
No opposition was encountered, and by dark strong works had been 
thrown up, facing east and south, the work of destruction on the rail¬ 
road being continued through the night. On the morning of the 1st of 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


217 


September, Newton’s and Kimball’s divisions were marching along the 
line of the railroad the length of a brigade front, and at a given signal 
the ties and rails were lifted from their bed, piled up and burnt. Thus 
a mile and a half was turned up and destroyed in half an hour. An ad¬ 
vance of another mile and a half was then made down the road, and the 
operation repeated. Thus alternately marching and destroying the road, 
the two divisions marched a distance of ten miles, to within two miles of 
Jonesboro’, where they formed a junction with the Fourteenth Corps. 
Soon after the Twenty-third corps, which followed the Fourth, came into 
position on its left. Further to the left was the army of Tennessee. 

“ Previous to this the enemy had discovered the direction of General 
Sherman’s march, and two corps under Hardee had been sent to confront 
him at Jonesboro’, Hood meanwhile remaining for the defence of Atlanta. 
During the night of August 30th the march of a rebel column was heard 
on our left and centre, and in the morning two corps were found massed 
on our right. At daybreak, the Second brigade of Hazen’s division of 
the Fifteenth Corps advanced, and drove the enemy from a hill, which 
gave our artillery command at Jonesboro’, and the railroad less than one 
half mile distant. This success was immediately followed up by the re¬ 
enforcement of the brigade holding the hill, by a brigade from Osterhaus’ 
division. Toward three P.M. the enemy appeared in front of Hazen’s 
position, Lee’s corps advancing to the assault through a field of corn, 
while Hardee’s Corps attempted a flanking movement on the right, which 
was checked by Harrow’s division. Both divisions were soon engaged in 
checking the desperate and determined assault with which the enemy 
sought to overwhelm them. The rebels were driven back, only to rally 
again and again for the assault, until after two hours of desperate fighting 
they were finally repulsed. They had fortunately struck a position which 
we held too strongly to be easily dislodged. A reenforcement of two regi¬ 
ments was sent during the attack, by General Howard to General Wood, 
and a brigade of the Seventeenth corps, Colonel Bryant’s, to General 
Hazen. Failing in this assault, Cleburne’s rebel division marched to our 
extreme right, and assaulted Kilpatrick, who held the bridge on Flint 
River. General Kilpatrick succeeded, however, in holding his position 
until relieved by General Giles B. Smith’s division. 

“ During the night Hardee despatched Lee’s corps to look after the 
safety of Atlanta, so that but a single rebel corps Avas found opposed to 
our army on the morning of September 1st. This corps lay in position 
in front of Jonesboro’, with their right resting on the railroad. Having 
failed in the assault with which they hoped to drive back our army, they 
were prepared to resist its further advance in the best position they 
could secure. They had a large number of guns in position, which did 
effective service during the day. Late in the afternoon General Davis 


218 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


formed his troops for a charge upon the enemy’s position; Brigadier 
General Carlin’s division on the left, and Brigadier General Morgan, join¬ 
ing Fifteenth Corps on the right, General Baird being in reserve. The 
line was formed in the arc of a circle on the edge of the woods, the two 
flanks thrown forward overlapping the enemy, who held a position on 
some commanding ridges in front, covering Jonesboro’. In the face of 
a deadly fire of musketry, shell, and canister, the gallant Fourteenth 
Corps charged the rebel position, driving them from their breastworks 
and capturing many prisoners, including Brigadier General Go van, sev¬ 
eral colonels and other commissioned officers. Eight guns were also 
taken, among them part of Loomis’s battery captured at Chickamauga. 
The troops captured belonged to the fighting division of Cleburne. The 
approach of night prevented pursuit of the broken columns of the rebels, 
who escaped under cover of the darkness. 

“ At daybreak on the 2d, the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps advanced 
in pursuit of the retreating rebels, who came to bay near Lovejoy’s Sta¬ 
tion, six miles beyond Jonesboro’, toward Macon, taking position on a 
wooded ridge behind a swamp bordering a creek. Some skirmishing 
was had with the enemy’s first line until night—which was spent by our 
troops in intrenching. The enemy being found in strong position, and 
his retreat being assured, no further advance was attempted. 

“ Meatime Atlanta was alive with excitement. Despair had succeeded 
confidence as it became known that Hardee had been driven from Jones¬ 
boro’ south, while Hood was left in Atlanta with , his communications 
severed, and our army threatening both from the north and the south. 
Early on Thursday, September 1st, the removal of supplies and ammuni¬ 
tion commenced, and was continued through the day. Large quantities 
of provisions that could not be removed were distributed to the citizens ; 
the storehouses at the same time being thrown open to. the troops as 
they passed through the city. The rolling stock of the railroad, consist¬ 
ing of about one hundred cars, and six engines, was gathered together 
and destroyed. The cars were laden with the surplus ammunition taken 
out on the Augusta Railroad, and set on fire and blown up, making the 
earth tremble with the explosion. Over one thousand bales of cotton 
were also given to the torch. The scene of confusion and excitement 
among the town people when it became evident that the city was to be 
evacuated, is beyond description. Every possible and impossible vehi¬ 
cle was brought into requisition to carry away the effects of the inhabi¬ 
tants, who, in sorrowful procession, took up their line of march toward 
the South. For the third time the peripatetic Memphis Appeal was on 
the wing, its editor reporting himself at this time ‘ thoroughly demor¬ 
alized.’ From the shanties and cellars of the city swarmed out the lower 
classes of the population to seize what they could fr em the general wreck. 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


219 


The explosion of ammunition was heard by General Slocum, of the Twen¬ 
tieth Corps, seven miles distant. Suspecting the cause, he sent out a 
heavy column to reconnoitre at daybreak on the morning of the 2d in¬ 
stant. They met with no opposition, and pushed forward on the roads 
leading into Atlanta from the north and northwest. Arriving near the 
city, they were met by the mayor, Mr. Calhoun, who formally surren¬ 
dered the city. The formalities disposed of, our troops entered Atlanta 
with banners flying and music playing, the inhabitants looking on in si¬ 
lence. General Slocum established his headquarters at the Trout House, 
the principal hotel of the city. Eleven heavy guns, mostly sixty-six 
pounders, were found in the forts of the city, and others were subse¬ 
quently discovered buried in fictitious graves. About three thousand 
muskets, in good order, and three locomotives were also secured, besides 
large quantities of manufactured tobacco. About two hundred rebel 
stragglers were gathered up by the Second Massachusetts, which was 
detailed for provost duty, its colonel, Coggswell, being appointed pro¬ 
vost marshal. But a small proportion of the inhabitants remained in the 
city, and these principally of the lower classes, and tradesmen who pro¬ 
posed to make an honest penny out of the army. Their hopes were 
speedily cut short by a peremptory order from General Sherman ordering 
all civilians from the city. ’ ’ 

In looking back upon this campaign, a very remarkable feature of it 
was the protection of his line of communication : “ It was not a little pre¬ 
carious, and more than once aroused the anxiety of the nation. It might 
well occasion solicitude. His base was, in one sense, not at Chattanooga, 
but at Nashville ; with the former point as a secondary base. Accord, 
ingly, the enemy bent his efforts not only to breaking the railroad between 
Atlanta and Ringgold, striking it at Dalton and Calhoun, but also to raiding 
on the road from Chattanooga back to Nashville. From Atlanta to Chat- 
tanoogo the railroad is one hundred and thirty-five miles long ; from 
Chattanooga to Nashville only a little less. With this line of two hun¬ 
dred and fifty miles, stretched clear across the great Alleghany chain 
from flank to flank, in a disputed country, filled with guerillas and hos¬ 
tile inhabitants, with myriads of nooks and eyries in the mountain regions, 
apt for the assemblage and protection of marauding bands, with that at¬ 
tenuated line infested by many squadrons of the best cavalry of the Con¬ 
federacy, long accustomed to be victorious everywhere—cavalry who 
had devastated almost with impunity the broad States of Kentucky and 
Tennessee, again and again, under such bold and skilful leaders as John 
Morgan, Forrest, Wheeler, Stephen Lee, Rhoddy, and Chalmers—in spite 
of all, for four eventful months, through victory and repulse, in ac¬ 
tion and repose alike, Sherman has been able to keep his lines strong and 
clear. 


220 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


“While all the Southern newspapers, and many Southern generals, and 
while even English journals of great ability were proving by all the laws 
of logic and strategy that Sherman must now retreat, Sherman did not re¬ 
treat. At the very moment, indeed, when the exultation of the Confed¬ 
erates was the highest at the absolute certainty of his downfall, Sherman 
pushed on and took Atlanta, ending logic and campaign both at once.” 

“ Atlanta is ours, and fairly won,” is the sublime language of General 
Sherman. 

This glorious writing sent a thrill of joy through the heart of the na¬ 
tion. Mr. Lincoln iissued the following : 

“ Executive Mansion, September 3. 

“ The National thanks are tendered by the President to Major General 
William T. Sherman, and the gallant officers and soldiers of his command 
before Atlanta, for the distinguished ability, courage and perseverance 
displayed in the campaign in Georgia, which, under Divine favor, have 
resulted in the capture of the city of Atlanta. 

“ The marches, battles, sieges, and other military operations that have 
signalized this Campaign, must render it famous in the annals of war, and 
entitle those who have participated therein to the applause and thanks 
of the Nation. Abraham Lincoln.” 

“City Point, Va., September 4—9 p. m. 

“ Major General Sherman : 

I have just received your dispatch announcing the capture of Atlanta. 
In honor of your great victory I have just ordered a salute to be fired 
with shotted guns from every battery bearing upon the enemy. The sa¬ 
lute will be fired within an hour, amidst great rejoicing. 

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant General.” 

“Headquarters Military Division of Mississippi, ) 

In the Field, Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 8, 1864. f 

“ The officers and soldiers of the Armies of the Cumberland, Ohio, and 
the Tennessee, have already received the thanks of the Nation, through 
the President and Commander-in-Chief, and it now remains only for him 
who has been with you from the beginning, and who intends to stay all 
the time, to thank the officers and men for their intelligence, fidelity, and 
courage displayed in the campaign of Atlanta. 

“ On the 1st of May our armies w*ere lying in garrison, seemingly quiet 
from Knoxville to Huntsville, and our enemy lay behind his rocky-faced 
barrier at Dalton, proud, defiant, and exulting. He had had time since 
Christmas to recover from his discomfiture on the Mission Ridge, with 
his ranks filled, and a new commander-in-chief, second to none of the 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


221 


Confederacy in reputation for skill, sagacity, and extreme popularity. 
All at once our armies assumed life and action, and appeared before Dal¬ 
ton ; threatening Rockey Face we threw ourselves upon Resaca, and the 
rebel army only escaped by the rapidity of its retreat, aided by the nu¬ 
merous roads with which he was familiar, and which were strange to us. 
Again he took position in Allatoona, but we gave him no rest, and by a 
circuit toward Dallas and subsequent movement to Ackworth, we gained 
the Allatoona Pass. Then followed the eventful battles about Kenesaw, 
and the escape of the enemy across Chattahoochie River. 

“ The crossing of the Chattahoochie and breaking of the Augusta road 
was most handsomely executed by us, and will be studied as an example 
in the art of war. At this stage of our game our enemies became dissat¬ 
isfied with their old and skilful commander, and selected one more bold 
and rash. New tactics were adopted. Hood first boldly and rapidly, on the 
20th of July, fell on our right at Peach Tree Creek, and lost. Again, on 
the 22d, he struck our extreme left, and was severely punished ; and fi¬ 
nally, again on the 28tli he repeated the attempt on our right, and that 
time must have been satisfied ; for since that date he has remained on 
the defensive. We slowly and gradually drew our lines about Atlanta, 
feeling for the railroads which supplied the rebel army, and made Atlanta 
a place of importance. We must concede to our enemy that he met 
these efforts patiently and skilfully, but at last he made the mistake we 
had waited for so long, and sent his cavalry to our rear, far beyond the 
reach of recall. Instantly our cavalry was on his only remaining road, 
and we followed quickly with our principal army, and Atlanta fell into 
our possession as the fruit of well-concerted measures, backed by a brave 
and confident army. This completed the grand task which had been as¬ 
signed us by our Government, and your general again repeats his per¬ 
sonal and official thanks to all the officers and men composing this army, 
for the indomitable courage and perseverance which alone could give 
success. 

“We have beaten our enemy on every ground he has chosen, and have 
wrested from him his own Gate City, where were located his foun¬ 
dries, arsenals, and workshops, deemed secure on account of their dis¬ 
tance from our base, and the seemingly impregnable obstacles interven¬ 
ing. Nothing is impossible to an army like this, determined to vindicate 
a Government which has rights, wherever our flag has once floated, and 
is resolved to maintain them at any and all costs. 

“ In our campaign many, yea, very many of our noble and gallant com¬ 
rades have preceded us to our common destination— the grave ; but they 
have left the memory of deeds on which a nation can build a proud his¬ 
tory. McPherson, Barker, McCook, and others dear to us all, are now 
the binding links in our minds that should attach more closely together 


222 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


the living, who have to complete the task which still lies before us in the 
dim future. I ask all-to continue as they have so well begun, the culti¬ 
vation of the soldierly virtues that have ennobled our own and other coun¬ 
tries. Courage, patience, obedience to the laws and constituted author¬ 
ities of our Government; fidelity to our trusts and good feeling among 
each other ; each trying to excel the other in the practice of those high 
qualities, and it will then require no prophet to foretell that our country 
will in time emerge from this war purified by the fires of war, and worthy 
its great founder—Washington. W. T. Sherman, 

“ Major General Commanding.’’ 

The congratulations of the heroic, devoutly Christian General Howard, 
who is equally at home in the Sabbath-school and in the smoke of battle, 
will add to the interest of the records of this eventful time : 

“ It is with pride, gratification and a sense of Divine favor, that I con¬ 
gratulate this noble army upon the successful termination of the campaign. 

“ Your officers claim for you a wonderful record—for example, a march 
of four hundred miles, thirteen distinct engagements, four thousand pris¬ 
oners, and twenty stands of colors captured, and three thousand of the 
enemy’s dead buried in your front. 

“ Your movements upon the enemy’s flank have been bold and suc¬ 
cessful ; first upon Resaca, second upon Dallas, third upon Kenesaw, fourth 
upon Nickajack, fifth, via Roswell, upon the Augusta Railroad, sixth 
upon ‘ Ezra Church,’ to the southwest of Atlanta, and seventh upon Jones¬ 
boro’ and the Macon Railroad. Atlanta was evacuated while you were 
fighting at Jonesboro’. 

“ The country may never know with what patience, labor, and expo¬ 
sure you have tugged away at every natural and artificial obstacle that an 
enterprising . and confident enemy could interpose. The terrific battles 
you have fought may never be realized or credited ; still a glad acclaim 
is already greeting you from the Government and people, in view of the 
results you have helped to gain ; and I believe a sense of the magnitude 
of the achievements of the last hundred days will not abate, but increase 
with time and history. 

“ Ourrejoicing is tempered, as it always must be, by the soldier’s sor¬ 
row at the loss of his companions in arms. On every hillside, in every 
valley throughout your long and circuitous route, from Dalton to Jones¬ 
boro’, you have buried them. 

“ Your trusted and beloved commander fell in your midst; his name— 
the name of McPherson, carries with it a peculiar feeling of sorrow. I 
trust the impress of his character is upon you all, to incite you to gener¬ 
ous actions and noble deeds. 

“ To mourning friends, and to all the disabled in battle, you extend a 
soldier’s sympathy. 


HL$ GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


223 


“ My first intimate acquaintance with you dates from the 28th of July. 
I never beheld fiercer assaults than the enemy then made, and I never 
saw troops more steady and self-possessed in action than your divisions 
which were then engaged. 

“ I have learned that for cheerfulness, obedience, rapidity of move¬ 
ment and confidence in battle, the army of the Tennessee is not to be sur¬ 
passed, and it shall be my study that your fair record shall continue, and 
my purpose to assist you to move steadily forward, and plant the old flag 
in every proud city of the rebellion. 

“(Signed) 0. 0. Howard, Major General. 

“ Official: Samuel L. Taggart, A.-A.-G.” 

Necessity, as Sherman paced the piazza of that house in Atlanta, utterly 
abstracted in thought, brought out the genius of the man. To him be¬ 
longs the credit, not only of the execution, but the conception of his great 
and triumphal journey to the coast. He gave a synopsis of his plans to 
Lieutenant-General Grant and the War department, and they sanctioned 
the enterprise. Being largely reinforced by the draft he sent the 
4th and 23d corps to General Thomas, in whose hands he had entrusted 
the Chattanooga and Nashville line, as a nucleus of a new army ; his ob¬ 
ject was to leave a sufficient force under an able commander to take 
charge of Hood, who had for months been hovering around Atlanta with 
a view of cutting off Sherman’s supplies, and was now preparing to 
advance on Nashville. Of this last movement General Sherman was 
accurately informed. From Dalton, Hood with his army moved to Gaines¬ 
ville, thence to Gadsden, from which point his advance on Nashville 
commenced. At length the great time for action came. Sherman divided 
his army into two wings. The right wing, 15th and 17th corps, under 
the command of Major General 0. 0. Howard: the left-wing, 14tli and 
20th corps, under Major General H. W. Slocum, while Brigadier General 
Kilpatrick, commander of the cavalry, was to receive special orders from 
the Commander and chief. 

On the 9th of November, 18G4, General Sherman, at his head-quarters 
in Kingston, Georgia, issued his orders for the march through that 
State to the sea. At Centerville he severed his connection with the 
North ; his last communication over the wires, to General Thomas, 
November 13, was, All is well. The rebels supposing Atlanta evac¬ 
uated on the 11th, rushed up to take possession, and over nine hundred 
of them were captured. On the ever-memorable night of the 15th of 
November, 18G4, the remaining part of the city of Atlanta was fired—and 
during the conflagration the whole heavens were illuminated, the sight 
being grand beyond description. A brigade of Massachustett’s sol¬ 
diers were the last to leave the town, the band of the 33rd regiment 


224 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


playing, John Brown's soul goes marching on. On the morning of the 
16th, General Sherman with his brave army, with only sixteen days 
rations, started for Savannah. Hood supposing the way was now clear, 
started for Nashville. Just fourteen days after Sherman left Atlanta a 
battle took place at Franklin, Tennessee, between Thomas and Hood. 
The latter lost 6,000 killed and wounded, and 1,000 prisoners, and thirty 
stand of colors. Manceuvering and skirmishing was kept up until the 
15th of December, when General Thomas secured a better position, 
his left resting on Murfreesboro, and his main body a few miles from 
Nashville. 

While in this position the fight commenced and lasted about nine hours, 
resulting in a great Union victory. Hood’s army abandoned artillery, 
wounded men, and the road was strewn for miles with trophies of war 
thrown away by the panic-stricken rebels in their flight. This great de¬ 
feat completely destroyed Hood’s army ; his loss being over 12,000 
men, and fifty pieces of artillery, and its commander was never again 
able to rally his forces to any advantage. The Union loss in the engage¬ 
ment was about 3,000 men. 

Sherman’s army was stretched out over a swath of country about sixty 
miles wide, destroying the Atlanta and Augusta railroad ; also the road 
to Macon. Railways, cotton mills, machine shops and founderies were 
everywhere destroyed; every means of making or repairing railroads 
south of Virginia and the Carolinas were destroyed. Lee could not de¬ 
pend on the South for supplies ; they had not even the means left to 
build up what Sherman was tearing down and destroying. The Georgia 
militia who had been sent to aid General Hood was recalled by Governor 
Brown, and a show of resistance now began to appear. Some of these 
troops had been recalled from Alabama, after a march of near five 
hundred miles. 

But the army moved on without hindrance, through Covington, Decatur, 
Madison, Jackson, and Eatonton. Approaching Milledgeville, in a swamp 
was found How T ell Cobb’s celebrated pacing mare, which cost him $25,000. 
This animal was found by private Walter Burns, Company E, Twenty- 
first Ohio, who a few days afterwards was captured and murdered 
while riding her. He was acting as orderly, and when his companions 
dug up his grave they found his throat cut after he had been shot 
through the head. At twelve o’clock, noon, November 22, the army 
entered Milledgeville. The national colors were hoisted over the state 
house by the 104th New York Regiment. Governor Brown and the rebel 
Legislature were in session the day before, but fled to Augusta, guarded 
by about one thousand rebel cavalry. The Union boys had quite a frolic, 
holding a mock rebel legislature in the state house. After it w’as organ¬ 
ized the question of reconstructing the state was discussed by the yankee 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


225 


members from the different comities with all the gravity conceivable. 
A few miles from this, at Gris wolds ville, a fight took place ; the enemy 
about 5,000 strong, composed chiefly of militia, was sent out to prevent 
a raid on Macon ; the result was a loss to the rebels of 2,500 in killed, 
wounded and prisoners ; Union loss, about 40 killed and wounded. 

Over ten thousand contrabands were now following the Union army, and 
its own safety and convenience required that the great exodus should be 
checked. At Ogeechee River for this purpose a guard was placed at the 
pontoon bridge which kept the blacks from passing until the troops got 
over, when the bridge was removed and the caravan left on the other side. 
The negroes would not be checked, but built a footbridge next day when 
they all passed over and followed the army. At Ebenezer Creek the same 
means were resorted to, to prevent the blacks encumbering the army, 
which did not know what moment it might be attacked. Wheeler came 
up in the rear with his rebel cavalry, and finding this great army of con¬ 
trabands trying to cross the stream, charged on the defenceless beings, 
drove them into the stream amidst shrieks of despair. Mothers clasped 
their infants and sank down in their watery grave. Thousands of these 
poor creatures perished in the stream into which they had been driven 
by the hellish monster, while he and his cut-throat cavalry companions 
sat on their horses on the river bank, shouting and laughing at the pain¬ 
ful sight. This was about forty miles from the coast. Kilpatrick and 
Davis had rfntil now, been a shield to the real movements of the army; 
it was impossible for the rebel commander Beauregard to determine 
whether it was at Millen, Augusta, Charleston or Savannah, that 
Sherman was about to strike. 

On the 11th and 12th of December, General Sherman began to draw 
the lines around Savannah. On the 12tli, Slocum’s left rested three miles 
from the city to beyond the Gulf railway, when Howard’s right rested 
eleven miles from the city. His corps had just completed the destruc¬ 
tion of the last link of railway centering in the city. In the meantime 
Kilpatrick moved down to St. Catharine Sound to open communication 
with the fleet. He wanted to storm Fort McAllister with the cavalry; 
but the General-in-Chief thought it might be hazardous, and would not 
consent. It was afterwards carried by Hazen. General Sherman viewed 
the conflict from the roof of Dr. Cheroe’s rice mill on the Ogeechee, 
opposite the Fort. Standing on this elevated position he looked through 
his glass out on the horizon, seaward. Discovering smoke, he remarked 
to General Howard, “ There is a gunboat.” Half an hour passed, and 
the guns of the Fort now opened, which indicated that Hazen had sent 
his skirmishers forward. Hazen now signalled that he had invested the 
fort and would assault immediately. 

15 


226 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


The gunboats now approaching, threw up signals informing Sherman 
that Foster and Dahlgren were close by. 

The distance of Sherman from the fort was about three miles. Steadily 
through his glass did he watch every movement. * ‘ There they go grad¬ 
ually ; not a waver.” Half a moment more he exclaims : “ How steadily 
it moves ; not a man falters. There they go, still. See the roll of mus¬ 
ketry. Grand ! Grand ! ’ ’ 

Still using his glass, he remarks, “ That flag still goes forward. There 
is no flinching there.” 

Steadily gazing, “ look,” he says, “ It has halted ! They waver—no, it’s 
the parapet. There they go again—Now they scale it—Some are over. 
Look ! there’s the flag on the works. Another ! —another ! Its ours !— 
the Fort is ours ! ’ ’ 

He dropped his glass by his side. His joy was complete. The vic¬ 
tory won!—remarking, “ Dis chile don’t sleep dis night.” 

At sunset, December 13th, the dark waters of the Ogeechee, bearing 
witness, will ever be remembered as the time General Sherman changed 
his base from Atlanta to the sea. By his triumph he fulfilled the covenant 
made with his heroes at Atlanta twenty days before. He had carried 
through the enterprise ! His achievement was complete. Only 23 were 
killed, and 82 wounded in capturing the fort. The rebels had 14 killed 
and 21 wounded. Well might Sherman, Howard, and Hazen be proud of 
the old Second Division. Under Logan, in the past, it had won unfading 
laurels, and under Hazen it capped the climax of its glory. From Atlanta 
the army passed over 42 of the finest grain growing counties in Georgia ; 
captured over 200 towns and villages ; brought out about 15,000 slaves : 
nearly the same number of horses and mules ; destroyed 240 miles of 
railroad ; burned all the bridges and cotton-gins ; all public buildings of 
service to the enemy; burned or bonded over $40,000,000 worth of cot¬ 
ton ; any amount of rebel scrip and money ; some gold and silver ; 30 
pieces of cannon, stores, and railroad trains, sufficient cattle to supply 
the army with fresh meat, and 4000 prisoners. Distance about 300 miles. 
Sherman says he lost about 500 prisoners, from straggling, and about 
350 killed and wounded, including those who fell assaulting and captur¬ 
ing Fort McAllister. While the gunboats were engaged in removing 
torpedoes, and Sherman in getting his siege guns in position, to more 
completely investing the city, General Hardee on the 20th of December 
escaped with his rebel army through the Union Causeway. On the 21st, 
General Sherman makes a triumphant entry into Savannah. Fort McAllis¬ 
ter, Fort Lee, Fort Jackson, Fort Barlow, and over 200 heavy guns, and 
38,000 bales of cotton were captured with the city. Here, as in all other 
places, the faith, earnestness and heroism of the black man is one of 
the greatest developments of the war! A number of colored clergymen 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


227 


had here an interview with Secretary Stanton, who, after an entire 
night’s conversation, remarked, they understood the question as well as 
any of the Cabinet. 

When I think of the universal testimony of the escaped soldiers who 
daily entered the Union lines, stating that in hundreds of miles which 
they traversed on their way, they never asked the poor slave in vain for 
help ; that the poorest negroes hid, sheltered, and shared their last 
crumb with them. 

How ungrateful would it be for the country to turn its back on such 
devoted friends! 

SIIERMAN’s MARCH INTO, AND THROUGH SOUTH CAROLINA. 

After his capture of Savannah, the last few days of December, and the 
first part of January, 1865, was spent by Sherman in recruiting his army 
from its long march through Georgia. The army was not only rested, but 
reenforced, having a greater number of effective men than when it started 
from Atlanta in November last. The organization was the same : Major 
General O.O. Howard led the right wing, and Major General H. W. Slo¬ 
cum led the left wing, Major General Kilpatrick under, and reporting only 
to General Sherman himself. 

On January 16th, he moved the 17th and two divisions of the 15th 
Corps by water to Beaufort, and on the 20tli the left wing, marching on 
either side of the Savannah river towards Augusta. 

On the 23d Sherman transferred his headquarters from Savannah to Beau¬ 
fort. The left wing was delayed by rains in camp, seven miles from Sa¬ 
vannah, until the 25th ; it reached Springfield the day after, and Sister’s 
Ferry on the 27th. The right wing moved from Pocotaligo towards the 
Cambahee river on the 29th. The left wing was unable to leave Sister’s 
Ferry on account of the high water. 

On the 30th the right wing moved along the Savannah and Charleston 
railroad, encountering rebel cavalry, until the 31st, when it arrived at 
McPhersonville, leaving the left still at Sister’s Ferry. This was the 
situation of the army on the last day of January. 

On the 1st day of February, the right moved from McPhersonville to 
Hickory Hill. The left was still at Sister’s Ferry. General Sherman be¬ 
came impatient at the slow advance of the left wing, which was now over 
20 miles behind. 

On the 3d, the right wing moved from Brighton’s Bridge across the 
Salkahatchie ; the enemy’s cavalry made some resistance to the crossing, 
by burning the bridge, and skirmishing with the advance, but was driven 
away, and on the 4th, the entire right crossed the stream. On the same 
day the left, which had been water-bound at Sister’s Ferry since the 27th 
of January, was enabled to cross the Savannah river. 


228 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


On the 5th, the right crossed Whippy Swamp, while ti e left came 
up to Brighton. The next day the right wing encountered and fought 
the rebel cavalry under Wheeler at Orange Court House, on the Little 
Salkahatchie, while on the 7th, it reached Bamburg and Medway, on the 
Charleston and Augusta railroad. The same day the left wing moved to 
Lawtonville, which place was burned by the 20th corps. 

On the 8th, the right crossed the South Edisto, and reached Grahams- 
ville on the 9th. On the same day the left wing reached Allendale. 

On the 10th the right wing crossed the North Edisto river, and the left 
reached Fiddle Pond near Barnwell. The right wing captured Orange¬ 
burg on the 11th, and the left marched through Barnwell on the same 
day, leaving the town in ashes, and encamped three miles from White 
Pond Station. 

On the 12th, the right wing left Orangeburg and made for the Congaree 
and Columbia, while the left tore up ten miles of the Charleston and Au¬ 
gusta railroad. Orangeburg was set on fire by a Jew who had lost 
50 bales of cotton by a body of rebels—he did it out of revenge. The 
soldiers tried to extinguish the flames, but could not on account of the 
high wind prevailing at the time. 

On the 13th, the left crossed the South Edisto, and the day following 
passed the North Edisto river. 

On the 15th, the right wing effected the passage of the Congaree, and 
began shelling Columbia, the Capital of South Carolina. General Carlin, 
who was in advance of the left wing, had a skirmish with the rebels near 
Lexington, capturing and burning the town. While the right wing con¬ 
fronted Columbia, the left marched to Hart’s Ferry on the Seluda river, 
three miles above the city. Beauregard, the rebel general, to whose skill 
and bravery the defence of the city had been entrusted, had placed troops 
in the woods beyond the river to prevent the Union army from crossing, 
but they were driven out by the left wing. 

On the 17th, Generals Sherman and Howard at the head of the right 
wing were the first to cross the bridge and enter Columbia. This was 
to have been the next rebel Capital after Lee evacuated Iticlimond. 
While marching up the main street the band of the 33d Massachusetts 
played, and the Army sang “ John Brown,” and “ Battle-Cry of Free¬ 
dom.” 

BATTLE-CRY OF FREEDOM. 

Yes, we’ll rally round the Flag, boys, we’ll rally once again, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom: 

We will rally from the hill-side, we’ll gather from the plain, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom ! 

Chorus. —The Union for ever! hurrah ! boys, hurrah! 

Down with the Traitor, up with the star! 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


229 


While we rally round the Flag, boys, rally once again, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom! 

We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom ! 

And we’ll fill the vacant ranks with a million Freemen more, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom! 

Chorus—The Union for ever! &c. 

We will welcome to our numbers the boys all true and brave, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom! 

And although he may be poor, he shall never be a slave, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom! 

Chorus—The Union for ever! &c. 

So we’re springing to the call from the East and from the West, 
Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom ! 

And we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best, 
Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom ! 

Chorus—The Union for ever! &c. 

The white male part of the inhabitants were mostly indifferent; but 
the blacks, men, women, and children, all shouted and danced with joy. 
“ Thank de Lord, Mr. Sherman hab come at last. We prayed, and de 
Lord Jesus answered our prayers.” 

One fat old woman said to him, while shaking him by the hand, which 
he always gladly gave to these poor people, “ I prayed dis long time for 
yer, and de blessing ob de Lord is on yer. But yesterday afternoon, 
when yer stopped trowing de shells into de town, and de soldiers run 
away from de hill ober dar, I thout dat General Burygar had driven you 
away, for dey said so ; but here yer am dun gone. Bress de Lord, yer 
will hab a place in heaben ; yer will go dar, sure.” 

Here could be seen slavery in its worst form. The Union army all bore 
witness that a studied effort has long been made by the heartless masters 
residing around this treasonable place, to reduce the negro to the level of 
the brute. And the vengeance of Almighty God was kept in store for 
this shameless crime. Old Glory (as the Union soldiers call the flag) was 
soon hoisted over the capitol of South Carolina midst the shouts of the 
army. 

Columbia was a beautiful place before the war. The new capitol build¬ 
ing is as fine as any in the States. Brown, the sculptor, at great personal 
expense, partially completed groups of statuary for which he has received 
no pay, and they remain stowed away in the surrounding buildings. By 
order of Wade Hampton the rebels had placed thousands of bales of 
cotton in the main streets of the city, and when evacuating the place set 
it on fire. Before any of the public buildings had been fired by Sherman’s 
men, a high wind arose, and the smouldering embers from the burning 
cotton was carried into all parts of the city, and on the night of the 17th the 


230 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


whole town was illuminated by its destruction. The arsenal, railroad 
depots, storehouses, magazines, public property, private residences of 
the aristocracy, together with the business part of the city, and twenty 
thousand bales of cotton were destroyed. The new State house was not 
burned, but the old one was. Not a rail upon any of the roads within 
twenty miles of Columbia but what was twisted into corkscrews, while 
on two of them the good work was continued to their terminus. Forty- 
five pieces of artillery were captured, fifteen locomotives, and an immense 
amount of cotton and government stores. 

FLOGGING A MAN-HUNTER. 

Some of the men, escorted by negroes and escaped prisoners, paid a 
visit to a noted ruffian, a second Legree, who kept a pack of bloodhounds 
for the purpose of hunting down niggers and escaped Union prisoners. 
The boys disposed of his dogs as they have done with all the bloodhounds 
they came across, burned down his house and place, then tied him to 
a tree and got some strapping niggers to flog him, which they did with 
a will, repaying in the lex talionis style. 

These blackhearted traitors, who for forty years have been taunting the 
North and defying the federal government, never dreamed that vengeance 
would penetrate their treasonable dens. But how mortifying it must have 
been for this slave oligarchy to witness, the feet of one hundred thousand 
abolitionists, hated and despised, press heavily on their soil. Thou¬ 
sands of the best blood of the State were off in the rebel army, and those 
that remained were left without homes. The Hamptons, Barnwells, Simses, 
Rhetts, Singletons, Prestons, and the rest had no resting-places. The 
ancient homesteads, the heritages of many generations, where were 
gathered the family ties and sacred associations of over two hundred 
years, were for ever gone. When they became traitors their honor fled ; 
now they have no local habitations, and in the glorious future of this 
great country they will have a traitor’s name. 

The right wing camped at Columbia, while the left was in camp on 
Broad river. On the 19th, it crossed the river, destroyed Greenville, and 
Columbia railroad, stopping at Alston. On the 20th, the right wing left 
Columbia, destroying the railroad to Winnsboro, and on the same day 
the left crossed the Little river. The whole army was concentrated at 
Winnsboro on the 21st. This led the rebel general Johnston to suppose 
that Sherman intended to push on Charlotte. On the 22d, the right wing 
crossed the Wateree river at Pay’s Ferry, while the left tore up the railroad 
above Winnsboro, and moved to Youngsville. On 23d, the right wing rested 
on Lynch Creek, while the left rested at Rocky Mount, Catawba river. On 
the 23d it crossed the river, while on the 25th, the right wing captured Cam- 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


231 


den. On the 27th, while General Carlin was endeavoring to cross the Ca¬ 
tawba, the rebel general, Wheeler, with his cavalry disputed the passage. 
The right wing now on the 28th moved from Camden towards Cheraw, and 
for three days encamped on Lynch Creek, waiting for the left wing to thrash 
Wheeler, and cross over the Catawba river and come up. 


GENEEAL DESCEIPTION AND APPEAEANCE OF CAEOLINA. 

The Sea islands of South Carolina extend along the coast from Winyaw 
bay to the Savannah river, and are composed of a rich vegetable loam of 
great fertility, producing sea island cotton, corn and rice. The orange tree 
and palmetto flourish among these islands. The tide flows a considerable 
%vay inland along the rivers, irrigating the immense extent of marsh land 
that borders them. These lands, though unhealthy, are very valuable as 
rice plantations. 

The region between the tide swamps, and the sand hills of the middle 
country extends foi; nearly one hundred miles. 

The river swamps here, too, are immense, extending in some places six 
miles in width, and are unfit for cultivation, but afford a safe resort for water 
fowls, reptiles, and alligators. Across these dismal swamps our armies had 
to force their passage. Beyond these the sand-hill region extends for some 
thirty miles towards Columbia, and includes the extremes of sterility and 
fertility. The high, poor lands are covered with pitch pine, black jacks or 
dwarf oaks, while the low lands bordering the rivers produce corn, cotton, 
and rice in abundance. 

The country extending from the sand-hill region to the mountains—some 
ninety miles—possesses a pretty uniform character. The surface is clay, 
covered for the most part with a rich soil, mixed with sand or granite. The 
rolling nature of this tract of country gives it rather a picturesque appear¬ 
ance. This tract extends along the Broad river, in York and Spartansburg 
districts. The mountainous country is confined to Pendleton and Greenville 
districts, and though the soil is rather sterile, the country is pleasant and 
healthy. 

On March 1st, the left wing moved on to Hanging Rock, and the next day 
marched to Horton’s Ferry, and on the 3d the entire army crossed Lynch 
Creek. 

On the 4th, the right wing captured Cheraw. Here were found many 
guns and a large quantity of ammunition which had been brought from 
Charleston when it was evacuated. General Mower fired them in honor 
of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration for the second time. These were all 
destroyed. While the left crossed Thompson’s Creek on the 5th. the 
right, and part of the left wing crossed the Great Pardee river ; Davis’s 
corps moving up to Sneadsboro. On the 6th, Davis crossed the Great 


232 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


Pardee, and the whole army was then out of South Carolina, having en¬ 
tered the old North State on the 5th of March at a point about 53 miles 
from Fayetteville. On the 7th, the left wing moved to Downing river. 
On the 8th, the right wing to Laurel Hill. On the 9th, the entire army 
marched by several roads to within twenty miles of Fayetteville. On 
the 10th, the entire force advanced ten miles, expecting an engage¬ 
ment with General Hardee. Kilpatrick fell on his rear, while retreating, 
and engaged Hampton’s cavalry. The fight lasted some hours and 
was hotly contested ; but the rebels were driven from the field. On 
the 12th, Sherman’s whole command entered Fayetteville. Here the 
machinery of the Harper’s Ferry arsenal was found, and with every spe¬ 
cies of property useful to the enemy entirely destroyed and thrown into 
the river. The campaign from Savannah lasted about fifty-four days, 
some forty of which had been spent in South Carolina, cutting a swath 
about forty miles wide, and leaving only ashes and embers in its track. 
The distance marched was near four hundred and forty-three miles. 

It is marvelous that Johnston, Hardee, Bragg, Hampton, Cheatham, 
S. D. Lee, Wheeler, and Butler, with a force of over 40,000 rebels scat¬ 
tered over North and South Carolina, were unable even to delay the ad¬ 
vance of Sherman. Twenty days constant rains made bad roads flooding 
the rivers and streams. But that was overcome and the great chief¬ 
tain went through the Carolinas as he previously had through Georgia 
and Tennessee. From victory to victory he continued his holiday-march. 

Fourteen cities, hundreds of miles of railroads, and thousands of bales 
of cotton were burned. Eighty-five cannon, four thousand prisoners, and 
twenty-five thousand animals were captured ; and about fifteen thousand 
slaves released from bondage. Sherman had sent from Laurel Hill two 
of his best scouts to give General Terry at Wilmington an account of his 
position and general plans. They reached him on the 12th of March. 

The army tug Davidson was dispatched to Fayetteville the same morn¬ 
ing, giving Sherman all needful information. The tug returned the same 
day and reported to General Terry at Wilmington, and General Scho¬ 
field at Newburn, that Sherman was prepared to move on Goldsboro on 
Wednesday, the 15th inst. Feigning on Raleigh, Hardee with 20,000 men 
retreating from Fayetteville halted in a swamp between the Cape Fear 
and South rivers, expecting to hold Sherman in check until Johnston 
would have time to concentrate his scattered forces either at Raleigh, 
Smithfield, or Goldsboro. It was necessary to dislodge Hardee in order 
to get possession of the Goldsboro road. General Slocum was ordered 
to press, and carry the position. On the 16th, the battle of Averosboro 
was fought by Slocum. Ward’s division of infantry followed up and 
through the town, developing that Hardee had retreated, not on Raleigh, 
but Smithfield. Ward’s division kept up a show of pursuit, while Slo- 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


233 


cum’s column wheeled to the right, built a bridge across the South river, 
(then very high) and took the road to Goldsboro. He encamped on the 
night of the 18th, twenty-seven miles from Goldsboro. Howard was at 
Lee’s store, two miles south ; both had pickets three miles in advance, 
where the two roads met and led to Goldsboro. 

Howard was ordered to advance by way of the Falling Creek church, 
from which General Sherman opened communication with General Terry 
coming from Wilmington, and General Schofield advancing from Newburn. 
The former was near Faison’s Depot; the latter at Kingston. The left 
wing under General Slocum now came up with the rebel army ; and finding 
that Johnston with the entire confederate forces in this section was 
massed for battle before him, he commenced to throw up breastworks. 
Kilpatrick hearing the sound of the artillery hastened up and formed on 
the left. The enemy under Hoke, Hardee, and Cheatham, commanded 
by Johnston himself, made six distinct charges but were repulsed at 
every effort. 

Johnston had come from Smithfield during the night, expecting to 
overwhelm Sherman’s left wing. On the 19th, General Slocum received 
reinforcements which made his position impregnable. The right, wing 
coming up about three miles east of the battle field of the day before, 
near Bentonville, met with rebel cavalry. Johnston intended to fight 
and whip the left and right wings of Sherman’s army in detail, but in¬ 
stead of doing that, was out-manoeuvred by Sherman, and thrown entirely 
on the defence. On the 20th, he was confronted with Sherman’s entire 
army with Mill Creek and a single bridge at his rear. This was the con¬ 
dition of things at Bentonville on the 21st of March; on the same day 
Schofield entered Goldsboro. General Terry had possession of the 
Neuse river at Cox’s bridge, about 'ten miles above the city, with pon¬ 
toons laid, and one brigade across the river. 

The 21st was a wet day, raining continually ; but General Sherman or¬ 
dered General Mower’s division of the 17th corps, on the enemy’s ex¬ 
treme right, while an attack was made on right and left by skirmishers. 
This was done to prevent Johnston falling on Mower’s division and over¬ 
powering it. On the night of the 21st, Johnston with his entire force re¬ 
treated to Smithfield ; at day-break he was pursued about two miles be¬ 
yond Mill Creek, when General Sherman called back those in pursuit. 
Sherman’s loss at Bentonville of the left wing was 9 officers and 145 
men killed ; 51 officers and 816 wounded ; and 3 officers and 223 missing 
—taken prisoners by the enemy. Total loss, 1,247. The right wing lost 
2 officers, and 35 men killed ; 12 officers, and 239 men wounded ; and 
one officer and 60 men missing. Total 399. The Union loss at Benton¬ 
ville was about 1,646. 267 dead rebels were left on the field, and buried 
by Sherman’s troops, and 1625 taken prisoners. General Sherman met 


234 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


General Terry for the first time at Cox’s bridge on the 22d, and on the 
following day went into Goldsboro, where he met General Schofield with 
his army who had possession of the place. The left wing entered that 
evening and the next morning, while the right wing came in on the 24th. 

General Sherman having now united his forces with General Terry and 
General Schofield, and on the previous day having whipped the entire 
rebel army in North Carolina under Johnston, he immediately started 
for City Point, Virginia, to consult with General Grant, leaving General 
Schofield in command of all the union forces around Goldsboro. He 
reached Grant’s head-quarters on the evening of March 27th, and met 
General Grant, President Lincoln, Generals Meade, Ord, and other offi¬ 
cers of the army of the Potomac. These chieftains had a consultation, 
and Sherman returned on the navy steamer Bat, via Hatteras Inlet and 
Newburn, reaching his camp at Goldsboro on the night of the 30th of 
March. His great object had been accomplished—forming a junction 
with Schofield and Terry. He was now in communication with General 
Grant, and ready to cooperate in the spring campaign of 1865. Within 
striking distance of the rear of the great rebel Capital, the doom of 
Richmond was sealed. 

General Sherman intended to move rapidly north by way of Burkes- 
ville, threatening Raleigh, and thus get between the two rebel armies, 
commanded by Lee, and Johnston. But the brilliant achievements of 
General Grant’s army on the first, second, and third of April at Peters¬ 
burg and Richmond, showed that the armies of the Potomac and James 
under Lieutenant General Grant were abundantly able to take care of the 
rebel army under Lee. The status undergoing a change, it became 
General Sherman’s duty to capture, or destroy the army of Johnston. 
On the 6th of April he estimated Johnston’s force around Smithfield to 
be, infantry and artillery, 35,000; his cavalry to number from 6,000 to 
10,000. Their cavalry force out-numbered Sherman’s, and for that reason 
he held General Kilpatrick in reserve at Mount Olive with orders to re¬ 
cruit his horses, and to be ready to march on the 10th of April. Sher¬ 
man in his report, dated City Point, Virginia, May 9th, 1865, says : 

“ At daybreak on the day appointed, all the heads of columns were in 
motion straight against the enemy. Major General H. W. Slocum taking 
the two direct roads for Smithfield; Major General O. O. Howard making a 
circuit by the right, and feigning up the Weldon road to disconcert the ene¬ 
my’s cavalry. Generals Terry and Kilpatrick moving on the west side of 
the Neuse River, and to reach the rear of the enemy between Smithfield 
and Raleigh. General Schofield followed General Slocum in support: all 
the columns met within six miles of Goldsboro, more or less cavalry with the 
usual rail-barricades, which were swept before us as chaff, and by 10 a. m. 
of the 11th, the Fourteenth corps entered Smithfield, the Twentieth corps 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


235 


close at hand. Johnston had rapidly retreated across the Neuse river, and 
having his railroad to lighten up his trains, could retreat faster than we 
could pursue. The rains had also set in, making the resort to corduroy ab¬ 
solutely necessary to pass even ambulances. The enemy had burned the 
bridge at Smithfield, and as soon as possible Major General Slocum got his 
pontoons and crossed over a division of the Fourteenth corps. 

“ We then heard of the surrender of Lee’s army at Appomattox Court-house, 
Virginia, which was announced to the armies in orders, and created univer¬ 
sal joy. Not one officer or soldier of my army but expressed a pride and 
satisfaction that it fell to the lot of the armies of the Potomac and James so 
gloriously to overwhelm and capture the entire army that had held them in 
check so long, and their success gave new impulse to finish up our task. 

“ Without a moment’s hesitation we dropped our trains, re-marched rapid¬ 
ly in pursuit to and through Raleigh, reaching that place at 7 : 30 a. m. on 
the 13th, in a heavy rain. The next day the cavalry pushed on through 
the rain to Durham’s Station, the Fifteenth corps following as far as Morris- 
ville Station, and the Seventeenth corps to John’s Station. On the supposi¬ 
tion that Johnston was tied to his railroad, as a line of retreat by Hillsboro, 
Greenboro, Salisbury, and Charlotte, etc, I had turned the other columns 
across the bend in that road towards Ashborough, (See Special Field Order 
No. 55.) The cavalry, Brevet Major General J. Kilpatrick commanding, 
was ordered to keep up a show of pursuit towards the ‘ Company Shops,’ 
in Alamancer county; Major General O. O. Howard to turn the left by 
Hackney's Cross-roads, Pittsburgh, St. Lawrence and Ashborough; Major 
General H. W. Slocum to cross Cape Fear river at Avon’s Ferry and move 
rapidly by Carthage, Caladonia, and Cox’s Mills. Major General J. M. 
Schofield was to hold Raleigh, and the road back, with spare force to follow 
by an intermediate route.” 

On the 14th of April, Johnston sent a communication to General Sherman 
enquiring if h.e had power to arrange for the suspension of hostilities; to 
which Sherman sent the following reply : 

Hdqrs. Division of the Mississippi, ) 
In the Field, Raleigh, N. C., April 14, 1865. J 

Gen. J. E. Johnston, Commanding Confederate Army. 

General : I have this moment received your communication of this date. 
I am fully empowered to arrange with you any time for the suspension of 
further hostilities as between the armies commanded by myself, and will be 
willing to confer with you to that end. I will limit the advance of my main 
column to-morrow to Morristown, and the cavalry to the University, and I 
will expect you will maintain the present position of your forces until each 
has notice of a failure to agree. 

Thus a basis of action may be had. I undertake to abide by the same 


236 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


terms and conditions as were made by Generals Grant and Lee at Appo¬ 
mattox Court-house, of the 9 th instant, relative to the two armies; and fur¬ 
thermore, to obtain from General Grant an order to suspend the movements 
of any troops from the direction of Virginia. General Stoneman is under 
my command, and my orders will suspend any devastation or destruction 
contemplated by him. I will add that I really desire to save the people of 
North Carolina the damage they would sustain by the march of this army 
through the central or western parts of the State. 

I am, with respect, your obedient servant, 

AV. T. SHERMAN, Major General. 

“By the 15th, though the rains were incessant, and roads almost impracti¬ 
cable, Major General Slocum had the Fourteenth corps, Brevet Major Gen¬ 
eral Davis commanding, near Martha’s Vineyard, with a pontoon bridge 
laid across Cape Fear river at Avon’s Ferry; with the Twentieth corps, Ma¬ 
jor General Mower commanding, in support; and Major General Howard 
had the Fifteenth and Seventeenth corps stretched out on the roads toward 
Pittsborough, while General Kilpatrick held Durham's Station and Capitol 
Hill University. Johnston’s army was retreating rapidly on the roads from 
Hillsborough to Greensborough, he himself at Greensborough.” 

An agreement was made to meet Johnston at noon on the 17th, provided 
the position of the troops remained statu quo. The railroad to Raleigh, 
twelve miles long, had to be completed by Colonel AVright, together with 
two bridges, and Sherman considered that advantage would be on his side 
by delay. The meeting took place as appointed, and the following agree¬ 
ment was entered into: It will be seen that Sherman refused to recognize 
any such authority as the Confederate States. Treating with Johnston and 
Breckinridge as insurgent generals, at the same time the conditions agreed 
on were understood to have been approved by Jeff. Davis himself. 

MEMORANDUM. 

Memorandum or basis of agreement made this 18th day of April, A. D., 
1865, near Durham’s Station, and in the State of North Carolina, by and be¬ 
tween General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the Confederate Army, 
and Major General AVilliam T. Sherman, commanding the army of the Uni¬ 
ted States in North Carolina, both present: 

First —The contending armies now in the field to maintain their statu quo 
until notice is given by the commanding general of either army to its oppo¬ 
nent, and reasonable time—say 48 hours—allowed. 

Second —The Confederate armies now in existence to be disbanded and 
conducted to their several State capitals; there to deposit their arms and 
public property in the State arsenal, and each officer and man to execute 
and file an agreement to cease from acts of war and abide the action of both 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


237 


State and Federal authorities. The number of arms and munitions of war 
to be reported to the Chief of Ordnance at Washington city, subject to fu¬ 
ture action of the Congress of the United States, and in the meantime to be 
used solely to maintain peace and order within the borders of the States re¬ 
spectively. 

Third —The recognition by the Executive of the United States of the sev¬ 
eral State Governments, on their officers and Legislatures taking the oath 
prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, and where conflicting 
State Governments have resulted from the war, the legitimacy of all shall 
be submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Fourth —The re-establishment of all Federal Courts in the several States 
with powers as defined by the Constitution and laws of Congress. 

Fifth —The people and inhabitants of*all States to be guaranteed, so far 
as the Executive can, their political rights and franchises, as well as their 
rights of person and property, as defined by the Constitution of the United 
States and of States respectively. 

Sixth .—The Executive authority of the Government of the United States 
not to disturb any of the people by reason of the late war, so long as they 
live in peace and quiet, abstain from acts of armed hostility, and obey laws 
in existence at any place of their residence. 

Seventh .—In general terms, war to cease, a general amnesty, so far as the 
Executive power of the United States can command, or on condition of dis¬ 
bandment of the Confederate armies, and the distribution of arms, and re¬ 
sumption of peaceful pursuits by officers and men as hitherto composing the 
said armies. Not being fully empowered by our respective principals to fulfill 
these terms, we individually and officially pledge ourselves to promptly ob¬ 
tain necessary authority, and to carry out the above programme. 

W. T. SHERMAN, Major general, 
Commanding the Army of the United States in North Carolina. 

J. E. JOHNSTON, General, 

Commanding Confederate States Army in North Carolina. 

About one hour after Sherman and his staff left Raleigh, to meet John¬ 
ston at Durham’s Station, the news was received of the assassination of Lin¬ 
coln. A courier was immediately despatched after Sherman, and he re¬ 
ceived the news of the President’s death while in conference with Johnston, 
and before the above agreement was signed. 

Of the cowardly assassination of Mr. Lincoln, he says: “ The news of 
President Lincoln’s assassination, on the 14th of April (wrongly reported to 
me by telegraph as having occurred on the 11th), reached me on the 17th, 
and was announced to my command on the same day, in Field Orders No. 
56. I was duly informed with its horrible atrocity and probable effects on 
the country. But when the property and interests of millions still living 


238 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


were involved, I saw no good reason why to change my course, but thought 
rather to manifest real respect for his memory by following, after his death, 
that policy which, if living, I felt certain he would have approved, or at 
least not rejected with disdain.” 

The bitter feeling created by the assassination of President Lincoln, 
with other very weighty objections, were such as tocause the new Presi¬ 
dent and his advisers to refuse to ratify the Memoranda or negotiations 
with Johnston. 

General Sherman’s idea was, that Johnston had it in his power to escape 
with his army through Charlotte, North Carolina, and thus indefinitely 
prolong the war. He says : “ Up to that hour I had never received one 
word of instruction, advice, or counsel, as to the plan or polic} 7 of the 
Government, looking to a restoration of peace on the part of the Rebel 
States of the South. Whenever asked for an opinion on the points in¬ 
volved, I had always avoided the subject.” He first offered the same 
terms to Johnston that Lee received from General Grant. But when he 
met Johnston again, Sherman says: “ He satisfied me then of his power 
to disband the rebel armies in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and 
Texas, as well as those in his immediate command, viz. : North Carolina, 
Georgia and Florida. The points on which he expressed especial solici¬ 
tude were, lest their States were to be dismembered and denied repre¬ 
sentation in Congress, or any separate political existence whatever ; and 
the absolute disarming his men would leave the South powerless and ex¬ 
posed to depredation by wicked bands of assassins and robbers. The 
President’s (Lincoln) Message of 1864; his Amnesty Proclamation; 
General Grant’s terms to General Lee, substantially extending the bene¬ 
fit of that Proclamation to all officers below the rank of colonel; the 
invitation to the Virginia Legislature to re-assemble in Richmond, by 
General Weitzel, with the supposed approval of Mr. Lincoln and General 
Grant, then on the spot; a firm belief that I had been fighting to reestab¬ 
lish the Constitution of the United States; and last, but not least, the 
general and universal desire to close a war any longer without organized 
resistance, were the leading facts that induced me to pen the ‘ memoran¬ 
dum’ of April 18, signed by myself and General Johnston.” 

On the receipt at the war office of the memorandum of negotiations 
entered into between Generals Sherman and Johnston, the articles were 
submitted to a Cabinet Meeting on the same evening, April 21st, and 
disapproved ; and General Grant dispatched immediately to the field of 
action. He arrived at Sherman’s head-quarters on the 24th ; and imme¬ 
diately informed General Sherman that his memorandum had been re¬ 
jected, and ordered that he should give Johnston forty-eight hours notice, 
and resume hostilities at the end of that time. Sherman says in his 
report: “ General Grant had orders from the President to direct military 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


239 


movements, and I explained to him the exact position of the troops, and 
he approved of it mobt emphatically; but he did not relieve me, or ex¬ 
press a wish to assume command. 

“All things were in readiness, when, on the evening of the 25th, I 
received another letter from General Johnston asking another interview 
to renew negotiations. General Grant not only approved, but urged me 
to accept, and I appointed a meeting at our former place at noon of the 
26th, the very hour fixed for the renewal of hostilities. General John¬ 
ston was delayed by an accident to his train, but at two p. m. arrived. 

“ We then consulted, concluded and signed the final terms of capitula¬ 
tion. These were taken by me back to Raleigh, submitted to General 
Grant, and met his immediate approval and signature. General Johnston 
was not even aware of the presence of General Grant at Raleigh at the 
time. There was surrendered to us the second great army of the so- 
called Confederacy ; and though undue importance has been given to the 
so-called negotiations which preceded it, and a rebuke and public dis¬ 
favor cast on me wholly unwarranted by the facts, I rejoice in saying, 
that it was accomplished without further ruin and devastation to the 
country ; without the loss of a single life to those gallant men who had 
followed me from the Mississippi to the Atlantic ; and without subject¬ 
ing brave men to the ungracious task of pursuing a fleeing foe that did 
not want to fight. As for myself, I know my motives, and challenge the 
instance during the last four years, when an armed and defiant foe stood 
before me, that I did not go in for a fight, and I would blush for shame 
if I had ever insulted or struck a fallen foe. 

“ The instant the terms* of surrender were approved by General Grant, 
I made my orders, No. 65, assigning to each of my subordinate command¬ 
ers his share of the work, and, with General Grant’s approval, made 
Special Orders No. 66, putting in motion my old army, no longer required 
in Carolina, northward for Richmond. General Grant left Raleigh at 9 
a. m. of the 27th ; and I glory in the fact that during his three days stay 
with me, I did not detect in his language or manner one particle of abate¬ 
ment in the confidence, respect and affection that have existed between 
us throughout all the various events of the past war ; and though we have 
honestly differed in other cases as well as this, still we respect each 
other’s honest convictions. I still adhere to my then opinions, that by a 
few general concessions, ‘glittering generalities,’ all of which in the end 
must and will be conceded to the organized States of the South, this day 
there would not be an armed battalion opposed to us within the broad area 
of the dominions of the United States. Robbers and assassins must, in any 
event, result from the disbandment of large armies; but even these should 
be, and can be, taken care of by the local civil authorities, without being 
made a charge on the National Treasury. 


240 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


“On the evening of the 28th, having concluded all business requiring my 
personal attention at Raleigh, and having conferred with every army com¬ 
mander, and delegated to him the authority necessary for his future action, 
I dispatched my head-quarters wagons by land, along with the seventeenth 
corps, the officer in charge of General Webster, to Alexandria, Va., and in 
person, accompanied only by my personal stalf, hastened to Savannah to 
direct matters in the interior of South Carolina and Georgia.” 

Johnston’s army was divided into three grand corps commanded by Gene¬ 
ral’s Hardee, Stewart, and Stephen D. Lee. The great body at the time of 
its surrender was about eighty miles from Raleigh, near Greensborough, the 
camps extended along the railroad above and below the town, forming a 
line of about fifteen miles in extent, and in all numbered about twenty 
thousand men. The details of the capitulation were left to be carried out 
by Major General Schofield, who appointed Major General Hartsuff in¬ 
spector-general of the twenty-third corps, who, with Majors Lord, Walcott, 
Letcher, and Captain Lyons proceeded to the front. They were received at 
the head-quarters of the rebel general with marked courtesy. One hundred 
and fifty pieces of artillery, with caissons complete, together with horses and 
harness, and thousands of small arms, were surrendered. At Raleigh speech- 
makings and torch light processions were indulged in by the victorious 
army. The Tenth Iowa Regiment, preceded by a fine band of music, visited 
General Howard’s headquarters and gave cheers for him and the prospect 
of peace. 

The final terms granted to Johnston, arid which he was forced to accept, 
were liberal in the extreme, and are an additional proof of the magnanimity 
of the loyal people of the Union. The vanquished forces of Johnston were 
allowed to retain all their horses excepting alone the artillery horses, all 
their wagons, and five per cent, of their small arms. The commissioned 
officers were allowed to retain their side arms, horses and baggage. Five 
per cent, of the small arms were distributed among the enlisted men to 
protect them on their way home. 

The settling of the details of the capitulation, required several days. On 
the 1st of May all was finished. On the 2d, General Schofield, accompanied 
by Colonels Wherry and Twining of his staff, took a special train for 
Greensborough ; they arrived there at noon. General Schofield visited Gener¬ 
al Johnston and spent the afternoon with him. 

Among the general officers surrendered by Johnston are the following: 
Lieutenant Generals W. J. Hardee, Stewart, and Stephen D. Lee ; Major 
Generals D. H. Hill, and Wm. Bate ; Brigadier Generals J. H. Sharp, Hen¬ 
derson, J. B. Palmer, Capers, Govan, Colquitt, Shelly, Featherston, Lowry 
and Logan of the cavalry. 

The unpretending wayside cottage, owned and occupied by Mr. Bennet, 



HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


241 


■where Sherman and Johnston met to arrange the terms of surrender, suffered 
at the hands of relic gatherers. The table on which the memoranda were 
written has been cut to fragments, and is in the hands of soldiers. The 
house is being carried off piece meal. After the cottage, the fence and 
trees will go, and in due time there will be an excavation to mark the spot 
where the disappearing Bennet cottage stood. 

General Howard’s army left for the North on the morning of May 3d, and 
Slocum’s left the next day for Richmond, Va. General Paine’s division of 
colored troops were sent back to Goldsboro, North Carolina. Howard’s 
corps went by way of Louisburgh, Warrenton, Laurenceville, and Peters- 
burgh to Richmond. Slocum kept to the left of Howard’s corps, going by 
way of Oxford, Baydton, and Nottoway Courthouse on to Richmond. They 
had orders to be at Richmond so as to be ready to resume the march by the 
middle of May. 

GENERAL SHERMAN’S ORDER. 

Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, ) 

In the Field, Raleigh, April 17, 1865. j 

Special Field Order, No. 56.—The General commanding announces, 
with pain and sorrow, that on the evening of the 11th inst., at the Theatre 
in Washington City, his Excellency the President of the United States, Mr. 
Lincoln, was assassinated by one who uttered the State motto of Virginia. 
At the same time the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, while suffering from a 
broken arm, was also stabbed by another murderer in his own house, but 
still survives, and his son was wounded, supposed fatally. 

It is believed by persons capable of judging that other high officers were 
designed to share the same fate. Thus it seems that our enemy, despairing 
of meeting us in manly warfare, begins to resort to the assassin’s tools. 
Your General does not wish you to infer that this is universal; for he knows 
that the great mass of the Confederate Army would scorn to sanction such 
acts, but he believes it the legitimate consequence of rebellion against right¬ 
ful authority. We have met every phase which this war has assumed , and 
must now he prepared for it in its last and worst shape , that of assassins 
and guerrillas ; hut woe unto the people who seek to expend their wild pas¬ 
sions in such a manner , for there is hut one dread result. 

By order of Major General W. T. SHERMAN, 

L. M. Dayton Major, and Assistant Adjutant General. 

On the 24th of May, Sherman’s army passed in review before the Presi¬ 
dent of the United States, in Washington, with banners proudly flying, 
ranks in close and magnificent array, under the eye of their beloved chief, 
and amid the thundering plaudits of countless thousands of enthusiastic 

16 


242 


GENERAL SHERMAN AND 


spectators. This was a glorious clay for the nation! a proud day for the 
Army of the Mississippi. 

GENERAL SHERMAN’S FAREWELL. 

HEAOQUARTERS, MIDDLE DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI. IN THE FlELD, ) 

Washington, D. C., May 30th, 1865. f 
The General Commanding announces to the Armies of the Tennessee 
and Georgia, that the time has come for us to part. Our work is done, 
and armed enemies no longer defy us. Some of you will be retained in 
service until further orders. And now that we are about to separate, to 
mingle with the civil world, it becomes a pleasing duty to recall to mind 
the situation of national affairs when, but little more than a year ago, we 
were gathered about the twining cliff's of Lookout Mountain, and all the 
future was wrapped in doubt and uncertainty. Three armies had come 
together from distant fields, with separate histories, yet bound by one 
common cause—the union of our country and the perpetuation of the gov¬ 
ernment of our inheritance. There is no need to recall to your memories 
Tunnell Hill, with its Rocky Face Mountain, and Buzzard Roost Gap, with the 
ugly forts of Dalton behind. We were in earnest, and paused not for danger 
and difficulty, but dashed through Snake Creek Gap, and fell on Ressacca, 
then on to Etowah, to Dallas, Kenesaw ; and the heats of summer found 
us on the banks of the Chattahoochee, far from home and dependent on a 
single road for supplies. Again we were not to be held back by any 
obstacle, and crossed over and fought four heavy battles for the possession 
of the citadel of Atlanta. That was the crisis of our history. A doubt 
still clouded our future ; but we solved the problem, and, destroying 
Atlanta, struck’ boldly across the State of Georgia, secured all the main 
arteries of life to our enemy, and Christmas found us at Savannah. Wait¬ 
ing there only long enough to fill our wagons, we again began a march, 
which for peril, labor and results, will compare with any ever made by 
an organized army. The pods of the Savannah, the swamps of the Com- 
bahee and Edisto, the high hills and rocks of the Santee, the flat quag¬ 
mires of the Pedee and Cape Fear Rivers, were all passed in midwinter, 
with its floods and rains, in the face of an accumulating enemy ; and after 
the battles of Averysboro and Bentensville, we once more came out of 
the wilderness to meetonr friends at Goldsboro. Even then we paused 
only long enough to get new clothing, and to reload our wagons, and 
again pushed on to Raleigh, and beyond, until we met our enemy, sueing 
for peace instead of war, and offering to submit to the injured laws of his 
and our country. As long as that enemy was defiant, nor mountains nor 
rivers, nor swamps nor hunger, nor cold had checked us ; but when he 
who had fought us hard and persistently offered submission, your General 


HIS GREAT CAMPAIGNS. 


243 


thought it wrong to pursue him further, and negotiations followed which 
resulted, as you all know, in his surrender. How far the operations of 
the army have contributed to the overthrow of the confederacy, of the 
peace which dawns on us, must be judged by others, and not by us. But 
that you have done all that men could do, has been admitted by those in 
authority ; and we have a right to join in the universal joy that fills our 
land because the war is over, and our government stands vindicated be¬ 
fore the world by the joint action of the volunteer armies of the United 
States. 

To such as remain in the military service, your General need only re¬ 
mind you that the successes of the past are due to hard work and disci¬ 
pline, and that the same w r ork and discipline are equally important in the 
future. To such as go home, he will only say, that our favored country 
is so grand, so extensive, so diversified in climate, soil and productions, 
that every man may surely find a home and occupation suited to his tastes; 
and none should yield to the natural impotence sure to result from 
our past life of excitement and adventure. You will be invited to seek 
new adventure abroad ; but do not yield to the temptation, for it will 
lead only to death and disappointment. 

Your General now bids you all farewell, with the full belief that, as in 
war you have been good soldiers, so in peace you will make good citi¬ 
zens ; and if, unfortunately, new war should arise in our country, Sher¬ 
man’s army will be the first to buckle on the old armor and come forth to 
defend and maintain the government of our inheritance and choice. 

By Order of Major-General W. T. SHERMAN. 

L. M. Dayton, Assistant-Adjutant-General. 

The country owes a lasting debt of gratitude to General Sherman and 
his brave army. Different opinions will exist as to the wisdom of the 
policy adopted in his memorandum with General Johnston, but all agree 
it emanated from pure motives. Sympathy for a brave, misguided, fallen 
foe, with the misery and destitution everywhere to be met, caused the 
brave heart of the great soldier to melt with pity. This, with the high 
and holy desire to establish peace from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, 
were his motives, and who is there that will say they were bad. 


THE FALL OF CHARLESTON, S. C. 


The bold advance of Sherman’s great army into the heart of South 
Carolina compelled the rebel General Hardee to evacuate Charleston. As 
soon as the rebel general learned that Sherman had destroyed two of the 
principal railroads, and was preparing to tare up the Florence, the last 
one leading into the city, while thus meditating on his position, the 
lightning conveyed the intelligence to him of the capture of Columbia ! 
Hardee now became panic-stricken, and the evacuation of this treasona¬ 
ble den commenced. Although the army of Sherman was over one hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five miles off, yet Charleston was flanked, and no 
longer tenable in a military point of view. Admiral Dahlgreen, and 
General Gilmore, who had been long watching their opportunity now 
began to discover the effects of a fire on the flank. Pleasanton was dis¬ 
covered to be secretly withdrawing, and retreating over the road by 
Christ’s Church. The garrison on James Island, and the rebel troops in 
the city, began to retreat by the North Eastern Rail Road. Witnessing 
this, Colonel Bennett commanding the 21st U. S. colored troops on Mor¬ 
is Island, dispatched Major Hennessey of the 52d Pennsylvania Volun¬ 
teers, with a few men in a small boat, to ascertain if Fort Sumter was evac¬ 
uated. Hardly had this gallant officer with his brave men time to reach 
and enter its battlements, when to the astonishment of thousands the 
Star Spangled Banner was unfurled, and floated in triumph over its 
battered walls. The sight of the flag was sufficient to create demonstra¬ 
tions of joy, and it was hailed by ail on ship, and shore. Lieutenant 
Colonel Bennett, Major Hennessey, and Lieutenant Bar of the 52d Pennsyl¬ 
vania started with a few colored troops for the city, leaving orders for 
others to follow. 

The approach of a Yankee boat was a strange sight at the Charleston 
wharf. Thousands of blacks, and a great number of whites were standing 
on the shore when it came up. Colonel Bennett was the first to land, 
and was immediately followed by the others in the boat. To their as¬ 
tonishment the blacks seized their hands and kissed them with delight, 
crying ‘ ‘ Glory Hallelujah ! dis is de army ob de Lord ! we watched for 
you dis four long year, we’s happy now !” The officers and men were 
surprised to see many whites in this den of traitors who appeared to 
hail with delight the sight of old glory. Charles Macbeth, then mayor, 


THE FALL OF CHARLESTON. 


245 


surrendered the city to Lieutenant A. G. Bennett. It had been previous¬ 
ly fired by the retreating rebels, in several places, and some of the rebel 
cavalry yet lingered around the suburbs lo prevent the firemen and de¬ 
serters (who were secreted in houses) from extinguishing the flames. 
They soon fled, when the Union troops began to march up Murry street. 
Here as at the landing, the blacks were wild with delight, every where 
hailing the Union officers and men as their deliverers ; and when the 
soldiers struck up the John Brown song, it filled the eyes of the blacks 
with tears, and their hearts with joy to hear the boys sing : 

John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave, 

While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save, 

But though he lost his life, in struggling for the slave, 

His soul is marching on, 

Chorus —Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! 

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! 

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! 

His soul is marching on. 

John Brown was a hero undaunted, true and brave, 

And Kansas knew bis valor when he fought her rights to save; 

And now, though the grass grows green above his grave, 

His soul is marching on. 

Glory, &c. 

He captured Harper’s Ferry with his nineteen men so true, 

And he frightened old Virginny till she trembled through and through; 
They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew, 

But his soul is marching on. 

Glory, &c. 

John Brown was John the Baptist, of Christ we are to see, 

Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be, 

And soon throughout the sunny South the slaves shall all be free, 

For his soul is marching on. 

Glory, &c. 

The conflict that he heralded, he looks from Heaven to view, 

On the army of the Union, with his flag red, white, and blue. 

And Heaven shall ring with anthems, o’er the deed they mean to do, 

For his soul is marching on. 

Glory, &c. 

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may, 

The death-stroke of oppression, in a better time and way, 

For the dawn of old John Brown, has brightened into day, 

And his soul is marching on. * 

Glory, &c. 

The rebels had laid a train to the arsenal, and it was saved from being 
fired by the timely arrival of the Union troops. The firemen came out 
when the rebel troops had all left, and with the assistance of Union sol¬ 
diers subdued the flames ; but not until four squares, a number of houses, 


246 


THE FALL OF CHARLESTON. 


and about 2,000 bales of cotton were destroyed. The Wilmington Depot 
of the North Eastern railroad, had been made a storehouse for large 
quantities of powder and cartridges. This was fired about eight o’clock 
on Saturday morning : the explosion was terrific, shaking the city to its 
foundations. About 150 men women and children were killed, and over 
200 wounded by the explosion. The moans of the dying sufferers were 
heart-rending ; beyond the aid of their surviving friends who gathered 
around, only to hear their voices growing weaker and weaker, until 
hushed in silence, the spirits leaving their mortal prisons, were gathered 
to their Maker. 


THE RHETTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

It is important that posterity should know something of the history of 
this family; as one of them, Barnwell Rhett, owned and published the 
Charleston Mercury, and had the unenviable distinction of hoisting in 
Broad street, over the office of that infamous sheet, the first rebel bastard 
flag ever seen in the United States. 

The sire of this treacherous family’s original name was Smith, He was 
a native of the north of Ireland, and in religion, a catholic. Arriving in 
America, he immediately changed his name to Rhett, and in order more 
effectually to disguise himself, denied his religion and became a prot- 
estant. From him sprang all the people of the name of Rhett, now living 
in South Carolina. Some say he changed his name to elude pursuit; 
others that it was done to inherit property by fraud ; one thing is sure,— 
it was done, and it is right that it should be known everywhere. 

FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY GUNS TAKEN—DESPATCH FROM GEN. GILLMORE. 

“ Headquarters Deft of the South, ) 

Charleston, S. C., February 26,1865. j 

“Lieut.-Gen. U. S. Grant, and Maj.-Gen. H. W. Haileck, Chief of Staff, 
Washington: 

“An inspection of the rebel defences of Charleston shows, that we have 
taken over four hundred and fifty (450) pieces of ordinance, being more than 
double what I first reported. The lot includes 8 and 10 inch Columbiads, a 
great many 32 and 42-pounder rifles, some T inch Brooke rifles, and many 
pieces of foreign make. 

“We also captured eight locomotives, and a great number of passenger 
and platform cars, all in good condition. 

“ Deserters report that the last of Hardee’s army was to have crossed the 
Santee River yesterday, bound for Charlotte, N. C., and it was feared that 
Sherman had already intercepted their march. 

“ It is reported, on similiar authority, that the last of Hood’s army, twelve 


THE FALL OF CHARLESTON. 


247 


thousand strong, passed through Augusta last Sunday, the 19th, on the way 
to Beauregard. 

“ Georgetown has been evacuated by the enemy, and is now in our pos¬ 
session. 

“Deserters are coming in constantly. We have over four hundred already. 

“Q. A. Gillmore, Major-General Commanding.” 

SKETCH OF TnE CITY. 

The city of Charleston, the oldest in rebellion (having entered upon its in¬ 
glorious career of treason on the 20th of December, 1860, with the seces¬ 
sion of the State, and inaugurated the war by firing on Fort Sumter April 
12, 1861), is also one of the oldest in the United States, having been found¬ 
ed in 1672. Its population was recruited some years afterwards by Hugue¬ 
not refugees who emigrated from France, and settled in pretty considerable 
numbers in South Carolina. It was not till 1783 that it was incorporated 
as a city. Fifty-two years previously, in 1731, it contained six hundred 
houses and five churches, and a thriving business was done in its port. Du¬ 
ring the Revolutionary war the possession of the harbor of Charleston was 
the object of more than one British expedition. A garrison of four hundred 
on Sullivan’s Island, under the command of Colonel Moultrie, achieved 
great distinction by the repulse, on June 28, 1776, of a British squadron of 
nine ships-of-war. On the 12th of May, 1780, the city was surrendered to 
Sir Henry Clinton by General Lincoln, the corporation and principal citizens 
refusing to co-operate in its defence, and offering to acknowledge the sovreign- 
ty of Great Britain. The British held it till May, 1782. 

It is also the largest city in the State. It is built on a peninsula, or tongue 
of land, between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, which unite below the town, 
and form a spacious harbor, communicating with the ocean at Sullivan’s Is¬ 
land, seven miles distant. Both harbor and city somewhat resemble New 
York and its bay, in miniature. There is, however, this striking difference : 
that the portion of Charleston called the Battery, and corresponding to our 
Battery and to State Street, is the most fashionable part of the city. The 
city is regularly built, and extends nearly two miles in length, and a mile 
and a half in breadth. Some of the streets are from sixty to seventy feet 
broad, and some are narrow—for instance, King street, the Broadway of 
Charleston. The streets run mostly parallel to each other, running across 
from river to river, and intersected longitudinally nearly at right angles. 
They are shaded with beautiful trees. Several of the houses are embower¬ 
ed in a profusion of foliage and flowers. Many of the dwellings have piazzas 
and are ornamented with vines and creepers, while the gardens attached to 
them bloom with the orange, the peach, and other trees and shrubs in great 
variety. 


248 


CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF WILMINGTON. 


The city has, of course, suffered much in appearance from the ravages of 
war. The shells which have been almost daily thrown into the city from 
our forts on Morris Island, have much injured the lower part of the city. A 
correspondent of the South Carolina Advocate thus describes the desolation 
of the city: “Passing through the lower wards of the city you would be 
particularly struck with the sad desolation. The elegant mansions and fa¬ 
miliar thoroughfares, once rejoicing in wealth and refinement, and the theatre 
of busy life—the well ’known and fondly cherished churches—some of 
them ancient landmarks—where large assemblages were wont to bow at 
holy altars, and spacious halls that once blazed with light and rung with 
festal songs,—are all deserted, sombre and cheerless; and this is enhanced by 
the forbidding aspect of that vast district of the city which was laid in ashes 
three years ago, and which remaines in unmolested ruins as the monument 
of Charleston’s long and dreary pause in the grand march of improvement. 
Here you perceive her humiliation.” 

It appears that her humiliation was in reserve for the day when her valiant 
fire-eating sons should abandon her without a fight .—New York Herald. 

CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF WILMINGTON, N. C. 

The fall of Columbia the Capital of South Carolina, and Charleston the 
chief commercial city of that state was followed by that of Wilmington, 
which had become the chief port of entry and rendezvous for English 
blockade runners, and British rebel-privateers. General Schofield who 
had been so successful in several engagements in Tennesse, had com¬ 
mand of the army ; and Rear Admiral Porter of the navy. On the day 
Sherman captured Columbia, and Hardee evacuated Charleston, Schofield 
commenced marching from Smithfield on Wilmington. General Butler 
and Admiral Porter had on the 24th and 25th of December made an effort 
to capture Fort Fisher, commanding the entrance to the harbor ; but 
from some strange misunderstanding about time, failed. Two months had 
been spent in preparing for this important movement, but General Scho¬ 
field and Admiral Porter now had determined on its capture. 

Schofield with the land forces, occupied both sides of the Cape Fear 
River in his approach to the city. The left flank was under the direction 
of General Terry, that of the right under General Cox, while the navy un¬ 
der Porter was carefully feeling its way up the channel, bombarding 
and shelling fortifications, and removing torpedoes, while thus advancing. 
On the night of the 20th of February, the rebels drew out into the stream 
over two hundred torpedoes, and floated them down the river to meet the 
fleet. In the encounter several of the vessels were injured, but this did 
not check the advance. Fort Anderson had, on the 19th, been captured 
by the land forces, and the rebel troops were pressed up to Eagle Island ; 


CAPTURE OP THE CITY OF WILMINGTON. 


249 


when on the 21st the Union forces, under General Cox, came in sight of 
the city. The same night the Union troops took possession of the rail¬ 
way leading to Charleston, and General Casement pushed his pickets 
down the river bank directly opposite the city. Cox’s troops approach¬ 
ed through a swamp, and finally crossed the Brunswick River in flat- 
boats, found at, or near the crossing. General Terry on the left flank 
was steadily advancing. The rebels, though entrenched, fled before 
Ames’s and Payne’s divisions. Fort St. Phillip was evacuated on the 
night of the 21st, and the rebel General Bragg, who was entrusted with 
the defence of the city, evacuated it the same night. On the morning 
of the 22d, Washington’s birthday, while flags were everywhere to be 
seen floating on the buildings in token of surrender, at precisely nine 
o’clock General Terry, with his command, entered the city, and received 
its surrender from John Dawson. Major Clement’s, and Cox’s divisions 
soon followed. The negroes were everywhere jubilant. Their friendship 
here as well as at all other points, showed them constant and true, will 
with delight when first meeting, and weeping when parting with the 
Union army. About 700 prisoners and 30 cannon, with cotton and stores, 
were captured with the city. 

Camp Lamb—rebels have mild names for prisons! This was located 
about one mile from the city, and there yet remained about 400 Union 
prisoners starving and neglected, blackened with pine smoke, without 
blankets or shoes, almost nude, delirious, hair matted, and eyes glossy, 
gnashing their teeth, and clenching their hands,—many had forgotton 
their own names. They had not had a mouthful to eat for three days, when 
the Union soldiers gave them bread. They raised their brows to Heaven 
as in devotion ; then again, looking at the gift as though puzzled to deter¬ 
mine from where it came, or what to do with it. A black woman (God 
bless her) was the only person administering to their grief. She was 
there as an angel gently smoothing their passage to the grave. 

Oh, these rebel prison pens! these inquisitions of the South ! tongue 
can not utter, nor pen describe, the crimes of their keepers, or the suf¬ 
ferings of their inmates. 

Ex-rebel Senator Foote, who was a member of the committee appoint¬ 
ed by the rebel senate to examine into the treatment of Union prisoners 
and reports of starvation, asserts that the investigations showed, that it 
was decided in Cabinet meetings to reduce the rations served out to the 
prisoners, so as to weaken and destroy their constitutions, that when ex¬ 
changed they would forever be useless again to serve as soldiers. Foote 
desired to report these facts to the rebel senate, but the balance of the 
committee overruled him and had them suppressed. 

D. J. A. Davis of Chicago, a prominent physician, states that a rebel 
surgeon, who had for four years occupied the position of Assistant Med- 


250 


CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF WILMINGTON. 


ical Director of the army of Northern Virginia, told him that Union pris¬ 
oners in the Rebel hospitals had been vacinated with venereal matter, 
and that this accounted for the frightful sores of the bodies of so many of 
them. 

North Carolina furnished one hundred and ten thousand men for the 
rebel army. Not more than ten thousand of this vast number held slaves 
or had any interest in the dying institution. The rebel leaders always 
distrusted their fidelity to the cause of treason. They had an idea that 
the non-slaveholding whites of the old North State were instinctively 
loyal to the Federal union for being thus suspected. Regiments from the 
state were always placed by rebel commanders in front of battle, and its 
soldiers were the first to fall. The Ruffin’s, the Steel’s, Caldwell, Bur¬ 
ton, Craig, and Ciingman; the Johnson’s, the Edward’s, Asa Briggs, and 
Bragg; the Rodger’s, the Saunder’s, John W. Ellis, T. B. Vance, and 
Wm. A. Graham ; the Spurrill’s, Dr. Holt, Avery, John M. Moorhead, 
&c. These and other hardened slave-holders carried the state out of the 
Union by fraud, and should be allowed no part in the future history and 
glory of this country. Clothed in garments stained with blood, and 
drenched in the tears of North Carolina’s widows and orphans, their 
names should no longer be mentioned side by side with even Benedict 
Arnold’s. 


J8f4 


• '■ . hi- ;i :,ii it,' * ' .,i : 
mii in*'J . al J }.,b > 

LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 

HIS EARLY HISTORY. 

services nxr Mexico 

AND 

HIS MIGHTY ACHIEVEMENTS IN OVERTHROWING 
THE GREAT SLAVEHOLDERS’ REBELLION 
AGAINST THE AMERICAN UNION. 

In the early part of the sixteenth century two brothers emigrated from 
Scotland to America—one settled in Connecticut, and the other in New Jer¬ 
sey. From the one who had chosen Connecticut as his home, sprang the 
family of which Gen. Ulysses Simpson Grant is a descendant. It appears 
that some of the descendants of this Connecticut brother wandered off into 
Pennsylvania. Jesse R. Grant, the father of the illustrious chief, was born 
in Westmorland county, of that State. In 1794, Jesse R. Grant moved from 
Pennsylvania into Ohio, and was engaged in carrying on a tannery. John 
Simpson, heretofore residing in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, in 1818, 
with his family, moved to Clearmont county, Ohio. Miss Hannah, daughter 
of Mr. John Simpson, having for some months received the attention of the 
tanner, in June 1821, consented to become Mrs. Jesse R. Grant. 

While thus newly married, they settled at Point Pleasant, about twenty- 
five miles above Cincinnati, Ohio. Here, on the seventh day of April, 1822, 
U. S. Grant was born. 

From here, Mr. Grant, with his family, moved to Georgetown, the capital 
of Brown county, Ohio, and it was in this place that young Ulysses began 
to receive the rudiments of his early education. His intellect, like most great 
minds, was slow to develop; he was remarkable for his perseverance, but 
otherwise he was not considered bright. 

On one occasion his teacher had given him a task to perform, in mas¬ 
tering which he experienced more than usual difficulty. A schoolmate, 
noticing his trouble, remarked: “ You can’t master that task.” The per¬ 
severing lad replied that he did not know the meaning of the word “ can’t,” 
and would refer to the dictionary, and ascertain its signification. Not find 








252 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


ing it in the book he referred the matter to the teacher, who explained the 
origin of the word, and was so much pleased with the pupil’s action in the 
case, that he related the anecdote to the entire school, and impressed upon 
them the importance of accomplishing whatever they might undertake, and 
always to remember that there is no such word as can't. 

The boy, even at that early age, had a great reverence for Washington. 
While at school at Georgetown, a cousin of his, whose parents had settled 
in Canada, and entertained strong distaste for everything American—even 
Washington was the butt of ridicule. John, for that was his cousin’s name, 
was in Ohio going to the same school, having imbibed these Anti-American 
notions from his parents, began to speak disrespectfully of Washington. 
Ulysses finally got tired of listening to that kind of slang, and gave John a 
severe thrashing. His mother, being a Christian woman, was about to chastise 
her son for whipping his cousin, but his father took a very different view of 
the matter, remarking, “ A boy that will fight for the honor and integrity of 
the name of Washington, will, in the future, make a brave and useful man,” 
and prevented the chastisement. 

This little incident created a patriotic pride and hope in the father's heart. 
Although unseen and unappreciated by the outside world, yet to him the 
bow of promise and distinction seemed encircling his youthful head. 

From this time forward the hopeful parent was determined to procure a 
West Point military education for his son. For this purpose he applied to 
Senator Morris; but this senator had parted with his right to recommend a 
cadet. Representative Thomas L. Hamer was then applied to, and through 
his influence U. S. Grant, then in his seventeenth year, entered the West 
Point school July 1st, 1839. While in the fourth class he became the sub¬ 
ject of jest and sport to those who had passed the same ordeal. These 
youths, who had been poking their fun at him, were in a higher class. While 
on parade one day, the thing ran so high that young Grant had a set-to 
with the captain, whipping him. He then turned to the Lieutenant, and 
enquired if he wanted to continue the sport. 

“ Yes,” says the lieutenant, “ I am ready.” 

It took young Grant, who then had his hand in at that kind of work, but 
a short time to drub the lieutenant. After he had finished the good work, 
Grant stepped out in front of the company and said: “I ask peace, and, if 
necessary, will fight the company, one by one, to gain it.” 

From being the subject of sport, he from this time on became the object of 
admiration; being always known afterwards as “ Company Grant.” In 1840 
he advanced into the third class, ranking as corporal in the cadet battalion. 
In 1841 he entered the second class, ranking as sergeant, and in 1842 he en¬ 
tered the first, becoming a commissioned officer of the academy. On the 
13th of June, 1843, he graduated number twenty-one in a class of thirty- 
nine. In July, 1843, he entered the United States Army as a brevet second 


SERVICE3 IN MEXICO. 


253 


lieutenant of infantry. He now became a member of the fourth regiment of 
regular infantry, stationed at Jefferson barracks, Missouri. 

He was ordered, in the summer of 1844, to repair to Nachitoches, Louis¬ 
iana, to form part of the command then organizing under Gen. Taylor, in 
anticipation of trouble with Mexico. In 1845 he was ordered to Corpus 
Christi, Mexico, and on September 30th, was made second lieutenant of the 
seventh infanty. His old comrades joined him in a request to the War De¬ 
partment, that he should be permitted to remain with his old friends of the 
fourth. The request was granted by the war department, and he received a 
second lieutenant’s commission in the fourth regiment regular infantiy. 

In the Mexican war, in the battles of Palo Alto, and Resaca de la Palma, 
he behaved with great bravery. At Monterey and Vera Cruz he also dis¬ 
tinguished himself for gallant conduct. At the battle of Molino del Rey he 
was promoted to first lieutenant. At Chepultepec, Major Francis Lee, com¬ 
manding the fourth infantry, remarks, “Lieutenant Grant behaved with dis¬ 
tinguished gallantry on the 13th and 14th.” Col. John Garland, command¬ 
ing the first brigade, in his report of the battle of Chepultepec, speaks in the 
highest terms: “ Lieutenant Grant of the fourth infantry acquitted himself 
most nobly upon several occasions under my own observation.” 

General Worth also in his report of Siptember 16th, 1847, bears the 
same testimony. Lieutenant Grant was again promoted for gal¬ 
lantry ; his commission, brevet of captain, dated September 13th, 1847, 
the same day the battle of Chepultepec was fought. Soon after his re¬ 
turn from Mexico he married Miss Julia Dent, a daughter of Frederick 
Dent, and a lady of refinement. Mr. Dent resided atGravois, near St. 
Louis, Missouri. In 1852 the fourth was ordered to the Pacific; their 
headquarters to be at Fort Dallas, Oregon Territory. In August 1853, he 
was promoted to the rank of captain, being then in the interior of Cali¬ 
fornia, about 400 miles from the coast. 

July 31st, 1854, he resigned his commission in the service, and took up 
his residence with his father-in-law near St. Louis ; a portion of his time 
was here employed as a collector and real estate agent, and dealer in 
wood. A writer says of him : 

“ General Grant occupied a little farm to the southwest of St. Louis, 
whence he was in the habit of cutting the wood and drawing it to Caron- 
delet, and selling it in the market there. Many of his wood purchasers 
are now calling to mind that they had a cord of wood delivered in person 
by the great General Grant. When he came into the wood market, he 
was usually dressed in an old felt hat, with a blouse coat, and his pants 
tucked in the tops of his boots. In truth, he bore the appearance of a 
sturdy, honest woodsman. This was his winter’s work. In the summer 
he turned a collector of debts ; but for this he was not qualified. He had 
a noble and truthful soul; so when he was told that the debtor had no 


254 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


money, he believed him, and would not trouble the debtor again. One 
of the leading merchants of St. Louis mentioned this circumstance to me. 
From all I can learn of his history here, he was honest, truthful, inde¬ 
fatigable—always at work at something ; but he did not possess the 
knack of making money. He was honorable, for he always repaid bor¬ 
rowed money. His habits of life were hardy, inexpensive, and simple.” 

He now, in 1859, removed to Galena, Illinois, where his father, Jesse R. 
Grant, then a man of sixty-five years of age, was engaged in the leather 
trade. Ulysses became partner in the business with his father. It was 
here in Galena, thus occupied in the peaceful pursuits of civil life, that 
Ulysses Simpson Grant in 1861 resided, when the storm of the rebellion 
burst with all its fury. 

When Sumter had been fired upon, Grant believing the Government 
required his services, raised a company in Galena, and proceeded at once 
with it to Springfield, Illinois. Governor Yates was commencing to organ¬ 
ize troops for the aid of the General Government, and he was ready to 
procure the assistance of a West-pointer, giving him a position as aid on 
his staff. After several months of arduous duty in this position, Grant 
requested the Governor to give him an appointment in one of the three 
years regiments then being organized. In the middle of June he resigned 
his position as mustering officer, and was appointed Colonel of the 21st 
Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, organized at Mattoon in that state. From 
here he removed his camp to Caseyville, and after drilling his regiment 
about four weeks, he was ordered to Missouri to guard the Hanibal and 
Hudson railroad in the north part of the state. He was here made acting 
brigadier general, and placed in command of all the troops in the district 
known as North Missouri. In August, his regiment was ordered to 
Pilot Knob, then to Feonton, then to Marble Creek. It was while Grant 
was shifting from position to position with his regiment, that the Gov¬ 
ernment made the hapy hit of appointing him brigadier general of volun¬ 
teers, rank and commission dating from 17th of May, 1861. About thirty- 
one distinguished military men received appointments to similar posi¬ 
tions at the same time. Among those appointed at that time were Will¬ 
iam T. Sherman, and Cox of Ohio, Hooker of California, McClearnand of 
Illinois, Franz Siegel of Missouri, S. R. Curtis of Iowa, Heintzleman and 
Franklin of Pennsylvania, John W. Phelps of Vermont, and over twenty 
other illustrious names. Some have fallen in battle nobly leading on 
their divisions, while many of them yet hold positions high in the confi¬ 
dence of the Government. Soon after General Grant was appointed, he 
was placed in command of the district composed of Southeast Missouri, 
and Southern Illinois, headquarters at Cairo, located at the junction of 
the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers. 

From this position, with only two Illinois regiments, four pieces of 


BATTLES OF FREDERICKTOWN AND BELMONT. 


255 


artillery, and two gunboats, by a strategic movement on the 6th of Sep¬ 
tember 1861, he advanced up to the mouth of the Tennessee river, and 
occupied Paducah ; he sent on the same day the gunboat Conestoga up 
the Tennessee river, capturing three rebel steamers ; and on the 25th of 
the same month, by the same sagacity and foresight, Smithland, at the 
mouth of the Cumberland was captured, and both rivers blockaded. This 
w T as the first development of military ability, coupled with success, made 
in the West. 

From Cairo General Grant sent out expeditions in different directions. 
About the middle of October 1861, Colonel Plummer, commanding the 
11th Missouri Volunteers, went towards Cape Girardeau in pursuit of 
Jeff. Thompson, who was reported to be at Fredricktown; here a little 
beyond the town, the rebels were found drawn up in line of battle. With 
the assistance of Colonel Carlins, Plummer fought the battle of Frederick- 
town, defeating the rebels, capturing one piece of artillery, and a num¬ 
ber of prisoners. 

Cairo now became an important position. The expedition against Bel¬ 
mont and Columbus was followed up early in November 1861. At the 
battle of Belmont, General Grant had his horse shot under him ; he 
was amid all the scenes of danger, riding from point to point, cheering 
on his men. The bravery displayed by all on that occasion, will be seen 
by the following, read to the troops on their return to Cairo : 

“ Head-quarters, District S. E. Mo. 

“ Cairo, November 8th, 1861. 

“ The General commanding this military district returns his thanks to 
the troops under his command at the battle of Belmont on yesterday. 

“ It has been his fortune to have been in all the battles fought in Mexi¬ 
co by Generals Scott and Taylor, save Buena Vista, and he never saw one 
more hotly contested or where troops behaved with more gallantry. 

“ Such courage will insure victory wherever our flag may be borne and 
protected by such a class of men. 

“ To the brave who fell, the sympathy of the country is due, and will 
be manifested in a manner unmistakable. 

“ U. S. Grant, 

“ Brigadier-General Commanding 

On the 20th of December, 1861, General Grant was appointed by Gen¬ 
eral Halleck, who was in charge of the department of the Missouri, to 
take charge of that district, with new and extended lines, then known as 
the “ District of Cairo.” 

General McClernand with about five thousand men, under the convoy 
of the gunboats Essex and St. Louis, with a supply of five days cooked 


256 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


rations, steamed down the Mississippi. Three rebel gunboats made an 
attack on the Union convoys, but after an hour’s engagement were forced 
to retire behind the batteries at Columbus, about eight miles below Cairo. 
Generals Paine, and C. F. Smith were also on the march to ascertain ex¬ 
actly the enemy’s position and numbers. After a week’s absence each 
commander returned to his former post. 

The time had now come for an advance into some of the strongholds 
of the enemy. Fort Henry on the Tennessee river, near the boundary 
line between that state and Kentucky, the expedition arriving near the 
mouth, on the 5th of February, 1862, General Grant issued his order 
directing his mode of attack. 

Towards noon of the 6th, the troops commenced, according to instruc¬ 
tions, their advance upon the works. After a little over an horn’s engage¬ 
ment the enemy lowered his colors and surrendered to Flag Officer Foote, 
who soon after passed the captured fortifications, including General 
Lloyd Tilghman, and its guns, to General Grant. 

Fort Donaldson, a very strong rebel position on the Cumberland river, 
was General Grant’s next move ; and on the 11th of February, he issued 
an order, having sent back to Cairo for some reinforcements. On the 
12tli, General McClernand, C. F. Smith, and Lew Wallace, with their 
troops commenced the advance. At noon on that day the enemy’s pick¬ 
ets were driven in. The next day, the 13th, was occupied principally by 
getting into position and waiting for the gunboats to arrive from Cairo 
with reinforcements. The gunboats had an important part to play in 
making the assault; at two o’clock on the afternoon of the 14th, the 
gunboats and reinforcements having arrived, the Carondelet had been 
attacking the Fort for about two hours on the 13th, but was compelled 
to withdraw for repairs. Six of the arrived vessels now moved up the 
river, receiving the fire of the lower batteries of the enemy. At 
seven minutes to three on the 14th, the St. Louis opened fire, and kept it 
up with great spirit until about half past four o’clock. The ironclads 
took up position within three hundred yards, and silenced the water bat¬ 
teries, and drove the rebel gunners from their posts, a shot having en¬ 
tered the pilot house of the St. Louis and shattered her wheel, other 
vessels having received severe damage—Flag Officer Foote ordered the 
squadron to drop down the river. On the morning of the 15th, the right 
of the Union line near the river below the Fort was furiously attacked by 
the rebels. The Eighth and Forty-first Illinois Regiments were the most 
exposed, and maintained their position with great bravery, until the 
rebels were reinforced at this point, when two of our batteries were 
also attacked and captured. The 18th, 29th, 30th, and 31st Illinois were 
quickly brought up ; when a desperate struggle ensued. The Union 
troops recovered all except three of the captured pieces. At length, 


CAPTURE OF FORT DONALDSON. 


257 


overpowered by numbers, the Union forces were forced to fall back. 
The enemy grew bold at his seeming success. The Union regiments 
under Colonel Cruft, and Colonel Wallace’s brigade came up, but the en¬ 
emy was so elated with his expected victory, that he made a des¬ 
perate charge which caused the Union troops to give way for the mo¬ 
ment, although at another point of attack the enemy were being driven 
in. General Grant saw the position here, and hastened to meet it. Gen¬ 
eral Smith was ordered to assault the left of the line, and carry the posi¬ 
tion at all hazards, while vigorous preparations were made to renew the 
contest on the right, and recover the ground lost in the morning. Gener¬ 
al Smith ordered the Third brigade of his division, embracing the 7th, 
50th, and 42d Illinois ; the 12th Iowa, and 13th Missouri, to move against 
one portion of the enemy’s lines, while with the Fourth brigade, embra¬ 
cing the 2d, 7th, and 14th Iowa, and 25th Indiana Regiments, led on by 
him in person against another part of the works. The 2d Iowa led, fol¬ 
lowed by the 52d Indiana, while the sharpshooters were deployed on 
either flank as skirmishers. In this position the column moved on with¬ 
out firing a gun, carrying the position at the point of the bayonet. This 
great Union success gave the troops new courage along the entire lines. 
Soon after the Fifth brigade, the 8th Missouri, and 11th Indiana, were 
thrown by Colonel Smith against the enemy’s position on the extreme 
right of the line from where the Union troops had been driven in the 
morning. Colonel Cruft was moved to his support; the assault was made 
in two columns, and the hill was carried by storm. This was the 
position on the evening of the 15th. On the morning of the 16th, 
the enemy displayed a white flag, proposing to surrender the Fort—but 
the rebel S. B. Buckner requested an armistice of twelve hours to agree 
on the terms of capitulation. General Grant’s reply was: “No terms 
other than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. 
I propose to move immediately upon your works.” 

U. S. Grant. 

Buckner acceeded to the terms, and the capture of Fort Donaldson was 
made complete. Union loss in the engagement was 446 killed, 1735 wound¬ 
ed, and 150 prisoners. Rebel loss 231 killed, 1700 wounded, and nearly 
14,000 prisoners, including Buckner, 48 cannon, and 17 heavy guns ; 
20,000 stand of arms, 3000 horses, and any quantity of commissary stores. 
The next day two regiments of Tennessee troops, ignorant of its capture, 
were permitted to march into the fort, making in all about 16,000 prison¬ 
ers. This is the largest number of prisoners of war up to this date ever 
taken on this continent. General Grant was now again promoted—to 
the rank of Major General of Yolunteers, his commission dating February 
16th, 1862, the day of the surrender of Fort Donaldson. 

17 


258 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


General Halle ck at this time issued an order creating the new district 
of West Tennessee, embracing the country between the Tennessee and 
Mississippi rivers to the Mississippi State line and Cairo. On the 17th 
February, 1862, General Grant issued his order taking command. After 
the occupation of Nashville by General Nelson on February 24th, General 
Grant moved his headquarters to Fort Henry where he spent some days 
in fitting out another expedition. Although great and important events 
had just taken place on the Tennessee and Cumberland, yet a mightier was 
at hand. The capture of the two strong outposts, Henry and Donaldson, on 
the border, served to rouse and call the more desperate and confident 
foe from his hiding-place in the interior. General Beauregard had as¬ 
sembled a strong rebel force at Corinth, 92 miles east of Memphis at the 
junction of the Mobile and Ohio, and Memphis and Charleston railroads. 
General Johnston who was at Murfreesboro, immediately started for Cor¬ 
inth and joined Beauregard. On April the 1st, here was assembled the 
strongest force the South had yet gathered on any battle-field. The 
South dreaded an invasion from the Union army victorious, and then 
resting in West Tennessee, and to prevent it, gathered an army of near 
60,000 men, under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston. Johnston 
drew to his assistance such men as Beauregard, Polk, Bragg, Hardee, 
Crittenden, and Breckenridge. With such an array of rebel comman¬ 
ders, urged on by the desperate emergency of the occasion, being 
sent there to prevent the invasion of the cotton States and to meet this 
great array of ability and strength, Major General Grant had about 38,000 
men, with McClearnand, W. H. S. Wallace, Lewis Wallace, Hurlburt, 
W. T. Sherman, as division commanders, and the gunboats Tyler, Cap¬ 
tain Gwin, and Lexington, Captain Shirk commanding. This was the 
status on the third of April. Johnston had postponed the attack until the 
5th, waiting till the arrival of additional reinforcements. 

General Buell’s forces had been ordered from Nashville to assist the 
Union army, and were hastening up, but before they arrived, Johnston at 
six o’clock on the morning of the 6th of April, pushed his advanced guard 
up to the 25th Missouri regiment, under Prentiss. They supposing the 
advance to be the enemy’s pickets, commenced to drive them back. The 
rebels being ready, soon advanced in great force against the left wing, 
pouring the grape and cannister and shell into the Union camp. The boys 
soon organized and commenced to return the compliment, when the 
rebel force became directed against the left centre, Sherman’s division 
driving the men back from their camps. The rebels now with a fresh 
force opened fire on the left wing, under General McClearnand. The 
fire was returned with great bravery and deadly effect by both artillery 
and infantry along the whole line—a distance of about four miles. 

General Hurlburt’s division was thrown forward to support the centre, 


BATTLE OP CORINTH. 


259 


when a desperate conflict ensued. The rebels were driven back with 
terrible slaughter, when they rallied and in turn drove our men back. 
The contest raged fearfully, the rebel commanders hurling their forces at 
one time against the extreme left, then against the right, and then with 
renewed ferocity against the centre. Major Taylor’s Chicago artillery 
raked the rebels down by scores, but the smoke no sooner cleared 
away than the breach would be again filled. Late in the afternoon 
the rebels saw General Buell approaching with 18,000 fresh troops. 
He was yet on the opposite side of the Tennessee river, and they knew 
their chances of success were extremely doubtful if his troops effected a 
crossing. General Wallace was only about six miles down the river at 
Camp Landing; although the boats were sent to bring him and his com¬ 
mand up, yet he had not arrived at five o’clock. The rebel commanders 
comprehending the position, made a furious attack on the left*wing, 
driving it back so as to occupy over two-thirds of its camp, and were 
fighting with a dreadful degree of confidence in driving the Union army 
back into the river. At the same time they were heavily engaging our 
right. In the meantime General Buell’s forces were on the opposite bank 
of the river anxious to take part in the struggle ; but the principal part 
of the transport boats having been sent to Savannah there was no means 
at his command by which he could cross the river during that day’s en¬ 
gagement. 

General Grant, with his staff who had been recklessly riding along the 
lines during the entire day amid the unceasing storm of bullets, grape, 
and shell, now late in the evening rode from right to left urging the men 
to stand firm until reinforcement could be got across the river. Just be¬ 
fore night closed in, a general cannonading was opened upon the enemy 
upon our whole line. Such a roar of artillery had then never been heard 
on this continent. As the evening grew dark the reply of the rebels be¬ 
came less frequent. The gunboats Lexington and Tyler had been raining 
shell on the rebel hordes. This last effort was too much for them 
to stand, and about dark their firing had nearly ceased. Thus ended the 
conflict on the evening of the 6th. The rebels had spent their fury in 
ord.er to destroy Grant’s army before the reinforcements under Generals 
Buell and Wallace which they knew were coming and already now ad¬ 
vancing, could arrive. But they failed to accomplish it. 

At half past two o’clock General Johnston commander-in-chief of the 
rebel army, while leading a charge, was mortally wounded. He was hit 
with a musket ball on the calf of the right leg ; believing it only a flesh 
wound he continued in the saddle, giving orders until he became ex¬ 
hausted from the loss of blood. Fainting, with extended arms, he w T as 
caught by the rebel Governor Harris as he fell from his horse, and amid 
the raar of artillery and excitement of battle breathed his last. News of 


260 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


his death was kept from the rebel army during the entire day. John¬ 
ston was a graduate of West Point in 1820 ; was in the Black Hawk war; 
left the United States army in 1836 and emigrated to Texas, arriving shortly 
after the battle of San Jacinto, and entered the Texan army as a private, 
but was soon promoted to succeed General Felix Houston in the chief 
command, after which Houston and him fought a duel, Johnston being 
wounded. He was then appointed Secretary of War, and in 1839 led an 
expedition against the Cherokees, fighting the battle of the Neches, was 
an ardent advocate of annexation of Texas to the United States in 1846. 
He took the field as commander of the Volunteer Texas Rifle Regiment, 
under General Taylor, against Mexico, after which he conducted the 
military expedition sent to Salt Lake in 1857. He had command of the 
Military District of Utah when the rebellion commenced. He was six 
feet high, strongly and powerfully framed, of Scotch lineage, naturally 
fair complexion, and was sixty years old when he died. Loss of the Con¬ 
federates in the two days battle was, killed, 1,728 ; wounded, 8,012; 
missing, 959. 

Night closed the day’s combat, and both armies rested from their aw¬ 
ful work of death and carnage. 

The Union forces rested on their arms in the position they held when 
darkness set in. During Sunday night the reinforcements of Buell and 
Wallace were taken to important positions on the battle ground, 
General Buell himself having arrived on the opposite side of the river on 
the evening of the 6th. 

At daylight on the morning of the 7th General Grant became the as¬ 
saulting party. General Nelson’s division of Buell’s army occupied the 
advance on the left wing. Advancing, they opened a galling fire, the 
rebels falling back. At the same time Major General Wallace with his 
division opened on the right, and the fire soon became general along the 
whole line. Generals McClernand, Sherman, Hurlburt, with their troops 
jaded from the previous days hard fighting, maintained throughout the 
second day’s conflict the same vigor and unyielding bravery. 

The hopes of the rebel commanders the previous day (that of destroy¬ 
ing Grant’s army before Buell and Wallace arrived) had now proved de¬ 
lusive, and they entered the conflict on the morning of the 7th with re¬ 
venge deepened from disappointment; with this feeling they urged their 
men on right up into the jaws of death. At every appearance of success 
on the right, when they were making a last desperate effort to flank the 
Union army, they cheered like savages ; but instead of flanking us on the 
right, about 11 o’clock in the day, General Nelson flanked them on the 
left, and captured their batteries of artillery. 

They again rallied on the left and made another desperate effort, but 
reinforcements from Generals Wood and Thomas came to Buell’s aid, and 


CAPTURE OF MEMPHIS. 


261 


he again commenced to drive the enemy. About three o’clock in the 
afternoon General Grant rode to the left, where he had ordered fresh regi¬ 
ments, finding the rebels wavering, sent a portion of his bodyguard to 
the head of each of five regiments, then ordered a charge across the field, 
himself leading and far in the advance brandishing his sword , waved them on 
to the crowning victory, the cannon balls falling like hail around him. 

His men followed with a shout that rose above the roar and din of 
artillery, the rebels fleeing in dismay as from a destroying avalanche, 
and never made another stand. By five o’clock the entire rebel army 
was in full retreat to Corinth, with our army in hot pursuit. 

Some have supposed that Grant’s battle-ground was not well chosen, 
with the Tennessee river in his rear. General Buell said to him, “ Sup¬ 
pose you had been whipped, you had transports only sufficient to cross 
over about 10,000 men.” “ Well,” says the great chieftain, “ if I had 
been whipped, that would have been abundant for all that would have 
been left of us.” 

From the 8th to the 13th of April, the army under command of General 
Halleck, continued to pursue the enemy to Monterey, Pea Ridge, Purdy, 
arriving within a few miles of Corinth where Beauregard had retreated 
and concentrated his forces to make another stand. The Union army 
was now reorganizing, and General Grant placed second in command. 
The army of the Tennessee (right) under General Grant; the army of the 
Mississippi (left) under General Pope ; and the army of the Ohio (centre) 
under General Buell. About this time an effort was made by rival mili¬ 
tary aspirants, and their satelites, to bring General Grant into disrepute 
by criticizing his military capacity and charging him with dissipation ; 
but a timely exposure of their malicious designs, by the Hon. E. B.Wash- 
burne, of Illinois, in an able speech delivered in the United States House 
of Representatives May 2d, 1862, checkmated their game. On the 27th 
Sherman, Thomas, Buell, and Pope, under the special direction of Gen¬ 
eral Grant made a reconnoisance within gunshot of the rebel works at 
Corinth. While General Grant was preparing for a siege, Beauregard on 
the 30th evacuated the place, retreating by way of Baldwin and Tupelo. 
While Beauregard was retreating from Corinth, Memphis on the Missis¬ 
sippi river was captured, and four gunboats sunk. This was the result 
of a naval engagement in front of the place on the 6th day of June. New 
Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Memphis were now all in the posses¬ 
sion of the Federal forces. 

On the 17th of July, 1862, General Halleck took leave of his army pre¬ 
paratory to assuming a more exalted position. The department was now 
subdivided, and under the command of different generals. The depart¬ 
ment of West Tennessee was assigned to General Grant, with Corinth as 
his headquarters. Very little was done in a military way except a few 


262 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


skirmishes, which always resulted favorable to the Union troops, until 
the middle of September, when the rebel generals were organizing at 
Iuka and other points to break through the Union lines and retake the 
conquered territory. Yan Dorn was to remain to defend Vicksburg. 
Breckenridge was to make his way into Kentucky, and Price to go to 
Tennessee. 

THE BATTLE OP IUKA. 

General Grant says : “ On the 16th of September we commenced to 
collect our strength to move upon Price, at Iuka, in two columns; the 
one to the right of the railroad commanded by Brigadier General (now 
Major-General) W. S. Rosecrans ; the one to the left commanded by 
Major General E. 0. C. Ord. On the night of the 18th, the latter was in 
position to bring on an engagement in one hour’s march. The former, 
from having a greater distance to march, and, through the fault of a 
guide, was twenty miles back. On the 19th, by making a rapid march, 
hardy, well-disciplined, and tried troops arrived within two miles of the 
place to be attacked. Unexpectedly the enemy took the initiative and 
became the attacking party. The ground chosen was such that a large 
force on our side could not be brought into action ; but the bravery and 
endurance of those brought in was such that, with the skill and presence 
of mind of the officer commanding, they were able to hold their ground 
till night closed the conflict. During the night the enemy fled, leaving 
our troops in possession of the field,with their dead to bury and wounded 
to care for. If it was the object of the enemy to make their way into 
Kentucky : they were defeated in that; if to hold their position until Yan 
Dorn could come up on the southwest of Corinth, and make a simulta¬ 
neous attack, they were defeated in that. Our only defeat was in not 
capturing the entire army, or in destroying it, as I had hoped to do. 

“ It was a part of General Hamilton’s command that did the fighting, 
directed entirely by that cool and deserving officer. I commend him to 
the President for acknowledgment of his services.” 

This battle of Iuka was a part of the battle of Corinth. The rebel Gen. 
Price supposed that Gen. Grant would have been compelled to with¬ 
draw his forces from Corinth on the 19th of September, to assist those 
who were collecting at Iuka. The rebel Gen. Yan Dorn was waiting for 
the move, but Gen. Grant understood their game, and sent Gen. Ord to 
that point. 

The rebel armies of Yan Dorn and Price, under Gen. Van Dorn, formed 
a juncture at Ripley, and commenced to march on Corinth. October 
the 2d the rebel army marched from Pocahontas to Chewalla, on the Mem¬ 
phis and Charleston railroad, thus moving from the west on Corinth. 


BATTLE OF CORINTH. 


263 


Gen. Grant, aware of the enemy’s movements on the morning of Friday, 
October 3d, had sent a large force some miles in front of his intrenched 
works, to meet him. At *7 o’clock, A. M., the rebel Gen. Lovell’s divis¬ 
ion, with Gen. Villipigue’s artillery, opened fire. It was not Gen. 
Grant’s plan to continue the struggle so far from his fortifications, there¬ 
fore the Union forces fell back to within one mile of their entrenched 
works, when, at half-past nine o’clock, a severe engagement took place. 
The Union forces were now ordered to fall back into the fortifications, 
which they did handsomely, and brought up several heavy field guns 
and opened a galling and destructive fire on the enemy’s advance. 

This retiring behind the entrenchments caused the rebel Gen. Yan 
Dorn, (who little understood their strength,) to dispatch on Friday night 
to Richmond news that he had won a great victory. 

On the morning of the 4th, Van Dorn continued in supreme command. 
Gen. Price commanded the left wing, and Gen. Lovell the right wing, 
which was stationed west of Corinth, and just south of the Memphis and 
Charleston railroad. The battle was commenced by Gen. Price half an 
hour before daylight, within a few hundred yards of the Union breast¬ 
works. Heavy skirmishing was kept up along the line until 10, A. M. 
About this time one portion of the rebel lines broke, running pell-mell 
into Corinth, losing all semblance of order, infantry and cavalry being 
crowded together in one dense mass, wild with excitement. 

But the batteries, under the orders of the Union general, had been 
so placed as to command the village, as well as the approaches to it. 
All the Union guns now opened on this disorganized rebel mob, who 
were cut down by thousands, almost swept from the face of the earth. 
Yan Dorn here began to understand that his supposed victory would re¬ 
sult in disastrous and disgraceful defeat. A lodgment in the village was 
out of the question, therefore he moved in single columns, eight deep, and 
moved in silence to assault the battery on College Hill, which was his 
forlorn hope. After being several times repulsed by the brave Union 
troops, at last additional guns were brought to bear, and a murderous 
fire opened on the rebels which nothing human could stand ; the few 
that were left alive became confused, and fled in wild dismay from the 
vortex of death. At 3 P. M., the rebel army had fallen back in great 
confusion. The rebel loss, in killed, wounded and prisoners, was over 
10,000 men, 4000 stand of arms, and two pieces of artillery. 

Gen. Grant says: 

“ Head-Quarters, Department of West Tenn., 
“Jackson, Tenn., October 1th, 1862. 

“ It is with heartful gratitude the General Commanding congratulates 
the armies of the West for another great victory won by them on the 3d, 


264 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


4th, and 5th instants, over the combined armies of Van Dorn, Price, 
and Lovell. 

“ The enemy chose his own time and plan of attack, and knowing the 
troops of the West as he does, and with great facilities for knowing their 
numbers, never would have made the attempt except with a superior force 
numerically. But for the undaunted bravery of officers and soldiers, 
who have yet to learn defeat, the efforts of the enemy must have proven 
successful. 

“Whilst one division of the army, under Major-General Rosecrans, 
was resisting and repelling the onslaught of the rebel hosts at Corinth, 
another from Bolivar, under Major-General Hurlbut, was marching upon 
the enemy’s rear, driving in their pickets and cavalry, and attracting 
the attention of a large force of infantry and artillery. On the following 
day, under Major-General Ord, these forces advanced with unsurpassed 
gallantry, driving the enemy back across the Hatchie, over ground 
where it is almost incredible that a superior force should be driven by 
an inferior, capturing two of the batteries (eight guns), many hundred 
small arms, and several hundred prisoners. 

“ To those two divisions of the army all praise is due, and will be 
awarded by a grateful country.” 

The rebel army retreated, crossing the Hatchie River, and halting at 
a point a little north of Ripley. On the 16th of October, 1862, General 
Grant’s department was extended so as to embrace the State of Missis- 
sipi as far north as Vicksburg, and he issued an order to that effect dated 
Jackson, Tenn., October 25th, 1662. Galveston, Texas, had been cap¬ 
tured by the naval force on the 9th of October; these, with defeats in 
Tennessee, began to tell on the nervous rebel leaders when they saw 
388 vessels of war, mounting 3072, nearly nine to the vessel, and among 
these, thirty iron clads, mounting ninety of the heavest guns in the 
world, each weighing 42,240 pounds, and throwing a solid shot fifteen 
inches in diameter, weighing 480 pounds. All eyes were now turned on 
East Tennessee and Vicksburg, as the next important positions. The 
rebel government had entrusted Vicksburg to Gen. Pemberton, and in¬ 
structed Van Dorn and Price to render him all assistance possible. Gen. 
Grant advanced from Jackson, Tenn., to Holly Springs, Miss. It was 
while Gen. Grant was here making arrangements to capture Vicksburg, 
that President Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation. 
On the 29tli of January, 1863, Grant moved his headquarters to Milliken’s 
Bend ; from this position he intended to flank the works upon the south 
side of the city ; an effort was also made to re-open the canal across the 
peninsula, on the Louisiana side of the river, first commenced by Gen. 
Williams, a gallant officer, who was subsequently killed at Baton Rouge. 

Early in February, the ram Queen of the West, under command of Col. 


BATTLE OF VICKSBURG. 


265 


Charles R. Ellet, ran past the batteries at Vicksburg, and after proceed¬ 
ing up Red River and capturing a large amount of valuable stores, and 
one steamer, coming in contact with three rebel armed steamers, the pi¬ 
lot of the Queen ran her aground in easy range of their guns, and Col. 
Ellet was forced to abandon her. The gunboat Indianola had also ran 
past the batteries, but on the night of the 24th was met and captured by 
the rebel fleet, but she sank before her captors could get possession of her. 

On the 21st of March, 1863, Admiral Farragut’s flag-ship, the Hartford, 
which with the Albatrose (two out of the six that started,) had succeeded 
in running past the batteries at Port Hudson,—this port is situated about 
sixteen miles above Baton'Rouge, and 300 below Vicksburg,—arrived 
below Vicksburg, and the Admiral communicated with Gen. Grant. 
Four days later the Union rams Lancaster and Switzerland attempted to 
pass the Vicksburg batteries, but the former was sunk, and the latter 
disabled by the rebel guns. On the 29th of March part of the Union 
army captured, after two hours’ fighting, the town of Richmond, La. 

Admiral Porter, with a number of gunboats and other vessels, began 
transporting the army across the Mississippi. On the night of the 16th of 
April the vessels succeeded in running the gauntlet, aiid one week after¬ 
wards the transports, loaded with troops, also made the perilous trip. 
Colonel (now General) B. H. Grierson, of the first cavalry brigade, was 
detailed by Grant to cut all the enemy’s communications with Vicksburg. 
Col. Grierson having destroyed bridges, railroads, locomotives, and 
every communication, and having routed the enemy wherever encoun- 
ered, arrived at Baton Rouge on the 1st of May. 

It was Gen. Grant’s intention to circumvent the defences of Vicksburg. 
First, by the canal across the isthmus opposite the city ; second, by the 
effort to get through the Yazoo Pass ; third, the Lake Providence canal 
project. It was his aim to get in the rear or below Vicksburg, but the 
natural difficulties were too great to be successfully overcome. The 
rebel fortifications at Snyder’s Bluff, on the Yazoo, or his batteries in 
front of the city, were about the only points susceptible of assault. 

On the nights of the 16th and 22d of April, 1863, two fleets of gun¬ 
boats and transports ran past the rebel batteries at Vicksburg without 
receiving material damage. From the 22d of December, 1862, the cap¬ 
ture of Vicksburg became a necessity, and from that day until the 4th of 
July, 1863, its entrenchments and garrison had little rest; its besieger 
knowing no such word as fail, applied every means to overcome the dif¬ 
ficulties that nature and art had thrown in the way of its capture. 
Through all these long, dreary months Gen. Grant continued, with his 
brave army, to persevere, and every obstacle was finally overcome. Up 
to the 22d of May all the combinations were so arranged as to carry the 
place by assault, but the developments of that day’s fighting convinced 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


266 


the commanding General that that -mode of capture would be attended 
with too great a waste of life. From that day Gen. Grant determined to 
capture the place by a regular siege. He brought on more troops, which 
enabled him to make the investment more complete, and give him a 
chance to keep a large reserve to watch the movements of the rebel Gen. 
Johnston, who was then gathering a force in Grant’s rear, threatening to 
compel him to raise the siege. 

“ On the afternoon of the third of July a letter was received from Lieu¬ 
tenant-General Pemberton, commanding the confederate forces at Vicks¬ 
burg, proposing an armistice, and the appointment of commissioners to 
arrange terms for the capitulation of the place. The correspondence, 
copies of which are herewith transmitted, resulted in the surrender of 
the city and garrison of Vicksburg at ten o’clock a. m., July fourth, 18G3, 
on the following terms ; ‘ The entire garrison, officers and men, were to 
be paroled, not to take up arms against the United States until exchanged 
by the proper authorities ; officers and men each to be furnished with a 
parole, signed by himself; officers to be allowed their side-arms and 
private baggage, and the field, staff, and cavalry officers one horse each ; 
the rank and file to be allowed all their clothing, but no other property ; 
rations from their own stores sufficient to last them beyond our lines ; the 
necessary cooking utensils for preparing their food ; and thirty wagons to 
transport such articles as could not well be carried. These terms I re¬ 
garded more favorable to the Government than an unconditional surren¬ 
der. It saved us the transportation of them North, which at time would 
have been very difficult, owing to the limited amount of river transportation 
on hand, and the expense of subsisting them. It left our army free to 
to operate against Johnston, who threatened us from the direction of 
Jackson; and our river transportation to be used for the movement of 
troops to any point the exigency of the service might require. 

il I deem it proper to state here, in order that the correspondence may 
be fully understood, that after my answer to General Pemberton’s letter 
of the morning of the third, we had a personal interview on the subject 
of the capitulation.” 

“ The result of this campaign has been the defeat of the enemy in five 
battles outside of Vicksburg; the occupation of Jackson, the capital of 
the State of Mississippi, and the capture of Vicksburg and its garrison 
and munitions of war; a loss to the enemy of thirty-seven thousand 
(37,000) i>risoners ; among whom were fifteen general officers ; at least 
ten thousand killed and wounded, and among the killed Generals Tracy, 
Tilghman, and Green, and hundreds perhaps thousands of stragglers, who 
can never be collected and reorganized. Arms and munitions of war for 
an army of sixty thousand men have fallen into our hands, besides a 
large amount of other public property, consisting of railroads, locomo- 


BATTLE OF VICKSBURG. 


267 


tivescars, steam-boats, cotton, etc., and much was destroyed to prevent 


our capturing it. 

‘ * Our loss in the series of battles may be summed up as follows : 


Port Gibson. 

Killed. 

. 130. 

Woundod. 

... 718.... 

Missing, 

5 

Fourteen-Mile Creek (skirmish). 

. 4. 

24.... 

# , 

Raymond. . 

. 69. 

... 341.... 

32 

Jackson. 

. 40. 

... 240.... 

6 

Champion’s Hill. 

. 426. 

... 1,842.... 

189 

Big Black Railroad Bridge. 

. 29. 

... 242.... 

2 

Vicksburg. 

. 245. 

... 3,688.... 

303 


“ Of the wounded, many were but slightly, and continued on duty; 
many more required but a few days or weeks for their recovery. Not 
more than one-half of the wounded were permanently disabled. 

“ My personal'staffs and chiefs of departments have in all cases rend¬ 
ered prompt and efficient service.” 

THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN GENERAL GRANT AND THE REBEL PEMBERTON. 

The following account of the interview between the generals com¬ 
manding the opposite armies, is given by an eye-witness : 

“ At three o’clock precisely, one gun, the pre-arranged signal, was 
fired, and immediately replied to by the enemy. General Pemberton 
then made his appearance on the works in Me Pherson’s front, under a 
white flag, considerably on the left of what is known as Fort Hill. Gen¬ 
eral Grant rode through our trenches until he came to an outlet, leading 
to a small green space, which had not been trod by either army. 
Here he dismounted, and advanced to meet General Pemberton, with 
whom he shook hands, and greeted familiarly. 

“ It was beneath the outspreading branches of a gigantic oak that the 
conference of the generals took place. Here presented the only space 
which had not been used for some purpose or other by the contending 
armies. The ground was covered with a fresh luxuriant verdure ; here 
and there a shrub or clump of bushes could be seen standing out from 
the green growth on the surface, while several oaks filled up the scene, 
and gave it character. Some of the trees in their tops exhibited the 
effects of flying projectiles, by the loss of limbs or torn foliage, and in 
their trunks the indentations of smaller missiles plainly marked the oc¬ 
currences to which they had been silent witnesses. 

“ The party made up to take part in the conference was composed as 
follows: 

“United States Officers. 

“ Major-General U. S. Grant. 

“ Major-General James B. McPherson, 

“ Brigadier -General A. J. Smith. 











268 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


‘ * Rebel Officers. 

“Lieutenant-General John C. Pemberton. 

* 

“ Major-General Bowen. 

“ Colonel Montgomery, A. A.-G. to General Pemberton. 

“ When Generals Grant and Pemberton met they shook hands, Colonel 
Montgomery introducing the party, A short silence ensued, at the ex¬ 
piration of which General Pemberton remarked : 

“ ‘ General Grant, I meet you in order to arrange terms for the capit¬ 
ulation of the city of Vicksburg and its garrison. What terms do you 
demand ?’ 

“ ‘ Unconditional surrender, ’ replied General Grant. 

“ ‘ Unconditional surrender !’ said Pemberton. ‘ Never, so long as I 
have a man left me ! I will light rather.’ 

“ ‘ Then sir you can continue the defence,’ cooly said General Grant. 
My army has never been in a better condition for the prosecution of a 
siege.” 

“ During the passing of these few preliminaries, General Pemberton 
was greatly agitated, quaking from head to foot, while General Grant 
experienced all his natural self-possesaion, and evinced not the least sign 
of embarrassment. 

“ After a short conversation standing, by a kind of mutual tendency 
the two general’s wandered off from the rest of the party and seated 
themselves on the grass, in a cluster of bushes, where alone they talked 
over the important events then pending. General Grant could be seen, 
even at that distance, talking cooly, occasionally giving a few puffs at his 
favorite companion—his black cigar. General McPherson, General A. J. 
Smith, General Bowen, and Colonel Montgomery, imitating the example 
of the commanding generals, seated themselves at some distance off, while 
the respective staffs of the generals formed another and larger group in 
the rear. 

“ After a lengthy conversation the generals separated. General Pem¬ 
berton did not come to any conclusion on the matter, but stated his in¬ 
tention to submit the matter to a council of general officers of his com¬ 
mand ; and, in the event of their assent, the surrender of the city should 
be made in the morning. Until morning was given him to consider, to 
determine upon the matter, and send in his final reply. The generals now 
rode to their respective quarters.” 

The same correspondent, under date of July 4th, 18G3, writes as fol¬ 
lows: 

“ Having a few hours leisure this morning, prior to the arrival of the 
despatch from General Pemberton, stating he was ready to surrender, I 
took occasion to visit General Grant, and found everybody about his 


BATTLE OF VICKSBURG. 269 

head-quarters in a state of the liveliest satisfaction. It was evident the 
glorious events of the day were duly appreciated. 

“ The General I found in conversation more animated than I have ever 
known him. He is evidently contented with the manner in which he has 
acquitted himself of the responsible task which has for more than five 
months engrossed his mind and his army. The consummation is one of 
which he may well be proud. From Bruinsburg to Vicksburg, nineteen 
days, presents one of the most active records of marches, actions, and 
victories of the war. All the combined operations of our armies, for a 
similiar length of time, can not equal it. It is unparalleled, the only 
campaign of the war which has involved celerity of movement, attack, 
victory, pursuit, and the annihilation of the enemy.” 

On the 8th of July, Port Hudson was surrendered to General Banks 
with 51 pieces of artillery, 5,000 stand of arms, a large quantity of am¬ 
munition and stores, and nearly 6,000 men and officers, including two 
Generals. The capture of Vicksburg was a victory fruitful of great re¬ 
sults ; it opened the Mississippi river, and its navigation has continued un¬ 
interrupted (except by a few guerillas) along the entire course of that 
stream from St. Lou,is to its mouth until the present time. 

General Grant, for his great services, was now October 16, 1863, ap¬ 
pointed Major General in the regular army, his commission to date July 
4tli, 1863. The officers under his command also presented him with a 
magnificent sword. At Memphis, New Orleans, and Indianapolis, he re¬ 
ceived the congratulations of his countrymen. The departments of the 
Ohio, of the Cumberland, and of the Tennessee, were constituted by 
order of President Lincoln into one military division, to be called “ The 
Military Division of the Mississippi, and Major General Grant appointed 
to take command of the same. This new command embraced the states 
of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, 
Northern Alabama, and North-western Georgia. This gave the com¬ 
manding general four large armies, that with which he conquered Vicks¬ 
burg, the army of the Cumberland, the army of the Ohio, General Hook¬ 
er’s grand, division. Sherman, Thomas, Burnside, Hooker, and subse¬ 
quently Foster, were his army commanders. 

The following corps were also embraced in the command : The Fourth 
army corps, General Granger : the Ninth army corps, General Potter: 
the Eleventh army corps, General Howard ; the Twelfth army corps, Gen¬ 
eral Slocum ; the Fourteenth army corps, General Palmer ; the Fifteenth 
army corps, General J. A. Logan; the Sixteenth army corps, General 
Hurlbut; the Seventeenth army corps, General McPherson ; the Twenty- 
third army corps, General Manson. 

Large as was the command thus entrusted to General Grant, the 
strength of the rebel army in the Southwest was but little less stupen- 


270 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


dons—troops from all parts of the rebellious States, where their absence 
from other fields was not detrimental to their infamous cause, having 
been gathered there by General Bragg to thwart the plans of the Union 
commander, and to hold Kentucky and Middle Tennessee. They freely 
acknowledged it was better to “ give up the seacoast—better to give up 
the Southwest—better to give up Richmond without a struggle, than 
lose the golden fields whose grain and wool were their sole hope.” 

On the 23d of October, 1863, General Grant reached Chattanooga and 
assumed command of the army of the Mississippi. Reinforcements now 
began to arrive, and preparations made for the new campaign. 

Bragg had already commenced the siege, but the tactics of Grant in 
opening river communication with the base of supplies, soon c >nvinced 
Bragg that the garrison could not be starved out; he also became satis¬ 
fied that Chattanooga could not be captured. 

Thus Bragg was forced to undertake the'eapture of Knoxville. Burn¬ 
side was holding a line on the Teneessee iriver, extending from Loudon 
to Kingston, possessing great natural advantages. He informed Grant 
of Longstreet’s approach, and also stated that he could prevent him from 
crossing the Tennessee river, but Grant instructed Burnside to make no 
defence of the line but to fall back on Knoxville and stand a siege, prom¬ 
ising to relieve him in a few days. This strategy told Longstreet on 
beyond the reach of supporting Bragg. This divided the rebel army in 
two. Bragg hearing of the approach of General Sherman to Grant’s aid, 
attempted on November 22d, 1863, to abandon his strong position before 
Chattanooga and retire for safety beyond the mountains. Grant was not 
willing to let Bragg off so cheaply, and made a move to detain him, and 
by commencing his operations one day sooner than he intended, compelled 
the rebel leader to remain in his rifle pits and accept battle. This was no 
blind uncertain striking that won the Alma, and Magenta. Grant had de¬ 
termined upon it six days before it was executed, and spent two entire 
days in watching from the very point of the line for the moment at which 
to attempt it. Grant was not only in command of his own army, but the 
enemy’s movements were forced upon him. Every movement of the 
rebel commander may be said to be ordered by Grant. Bragg in the 
command of the rebel army was merely his mouth-piece. Grant’s plan 
of battle contemplated the breaking of the enemy’s center, but it being 
strongly posted on a mountain ridge almost inaccessible, it rendered 
success only possible. Two days labor attacking the flanks weakened 
Bragg’s center ; this was what Grant worked for, and when the golden 
moment came, Grant instantly ordered the assault of the center, which 
resulted in the victory, capturing several thousand prisoners, and sixty 
pieces of artillery. Burnside about the same time defeated Longstreet at 
Knoxville (Fort Saunders), while Sherman v f as advancing to his relief. 


BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA. 271 

The rebels abandoned the seige, Longstreet retreating to Virginia, where 
he joined Lee directly after the battle of Fredricksburg. 

GENERAL MEIGS’S REVIEW OF THE BATTLES. 

Add to this report the one sent to the Secretary of War by Quarter¬ 
master-General Meigs, and we have an accurate and interesting account 
of the great battles. 

General Meigs wrote as follows : 

“ Head-Quarters, Chattanooga, Nov. 2 6th, 1863. 

“ Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War: 

“ Sir : —On the twenty-third instant, at half-past eleven, a. m., General 
Grant ordered a demonstration against Missionary Ridge, to develop the 
force holding it. The troops marched out, formed in order, and advanced 
in line of battle as if on parade. 

“ The rebels watched the formation and movement from their picket 
lines and rifle-pits, and from the summits of Missionary Ridge, five hun¬ 
dred feet above us, and thought it was a review and drill, so openly and 
deliberately, so regular was it all done. 

“ The line advanced, preceded by skirmishers, and at two o’clock, 
p. m., reached our picket lines, and opened a rattling volley upon the 
the rebel pickets, who replied and ran into their advanced line of rifle- 
pits. After them went our skirmishers and into them, along the centre 
of the line of twenty-five thousand troops which General Thomas had so 
quickly displayed, until we opened fire. Prisoners assert that they 
thought the whole movement was a review and general drill, and that it 
was too late to send to their camps for reinforcements, and that they 
were overwhelmed by force of numbers. It was a surprise in open day¬ 
light. 

“ At three, p. m., the important advanced position of Orchard Knob 
and the lines right and left were in our possession, and arrangements 
were ordered for holding them during the night. 

“ The next day at daylight, General Sherman had five thousand men 
across the Tennessee, and established on its south bank, and commenced 
the construction of a pontoon bridge about six miles above Chattanooga. 
The rebel steamer Dunbar was repaired at the right moment, and render¬ 
ed effective aid in this crossing, carrying over six thousand men. 

“ By nightfall General Thomas had siezed the extremity of Missionary 
Ridge nearest the river, and was intrenching himself. General Howard, 
with a brigade, opened communication with him from Chattanooga on 
the south side of the river. Skirmishing and cannonading continued all 
day on the left and centre. General Hooker scaled the slopes of Look¬ 
out Mountain, and from the valley of Lookout Creek drove the rebels 


272 


LIEUTFNANT GENERAL GRANT. 


around the point. He captured some two thousand prisoners, and estab¬ 
lished himself high up the mountain-side, in full view of Chattanooga. 
This raised the blockade, and now steamers were ordered from Bridge¬ 
port to Chattanooga. They had run only to Kelly’s Ferry, whence ten 
miles of hauling over mountain roads, and twice across the Tennessee on 
pontoon bridges brought us our supplies. 

“ All night the point of Missionary Ridge on the extreme left and the 
side of Lookout Mountain on the extreme right blazed with the camp¬ 
fires of loyal troops. 

The day had been one of dense mists and rains, and much of General 
Hooker’s battle was fought above the clouds, which concealed him from 
our view, but from which his musketry was heard. 

“ At nightfall the sky cleared, and the full moon-— 4 the traitor’s doom’ 
—shone upon the beautiful scene, until one, a. m., when twinkling sparks 
upon the mountain-side showed that picket-skirmishing was going on. 
Then it ceased. A brigade sent from Chattanooga, crossed the Chatta¬ 
nooga Creek and opened communication with Hooker. 

“ General Grant’s head-quarters during the afternoon of the twenty- 
third and the day of the twenty-fourth, were in Wood’s redoubt, except 
when in the course of the day he rode along the advanced line, visiting 
the head-quarters of the several commanders, in Chattanooga valley. 

“ At daylight, on the twenty-fifth, the Stars and Stripes were descried 
on the peak of Lookout. The rebels had evacuated the mountain. 

“ Hooker moved to descend the mountain, striking Missionary Ridge 
at the Rossville Gap, to sweep both sides and its summit. 

“ The rebel troops were seen, as soon as it was light enough, streaming 
regiments and brigades along the narrow summit of Missionary Ridge, 
either concentrating on the right to overwhelm Sherman, or marching for 
the railroad to raise the seige. 

“ They had evacuated the valley of Chattanooga. Would they aban¬ 
don that of Chickamauga ? 

“ The twenty-pounders and four-and-a-quarter-inch rifles of Wood’s 
redoubt opened on Missionary Ridge. Orchard Knob sent its compli¬ 
ments to the ridge, which, with rifled parrots, answered, and the can¬ 
nonade thus commenced, continued all day. Shot and shell screamed 
from Orchard Knob to Missionary Ridge, and from Missionary Ridge to 
Orchard Knob, and from Wood’s redoubt, over the heads of Generals 
Grant and Thomas and their staffs, who were with us in this favorable posi¬ 
tion, from whence the whole battle could be seen as in an amphitheatre. 
The head-quarters were under fire all day long. 

“ Cannonading and musketry were heard from General Sherman, and 
General Howard marched the Eleventh corps to jofn him. 

“ General Thomas sent out skirmishers, who drove in the rebel pickets 


BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA. 


273 


and chased them into their intrenchments; and at the foot of Missionary 
Ridge, Sherman made an assault against Bragg’s right, intrenched on a 
high knob next to that on which Sherman himself lay fortified. The 
assault was gallantly made. 

“ Sherman reached the edga of the crest, and held his ground for (it 
seemed to me) an hour, but was bloodily repulsed by reserves. 

“ A general advance was ordered, and a strong line of skirmishers fol¬ 
lowed by a deployed line of battle some two miles in length. At the 
signal of leaden shots from head-quarters on Orchard Knob, the line 
moved rapidly and orderly forward. The rebel pickets discharged their 
muskets and ran into their rifle-pits. Our skirmishers followed on their 
heels. 

“The line of battle was not far behind, and we saw the gray rebels 
swarm out of the ledge line of rifle-pits and over the base of the hill in 
numbers which surprised us. A few turned and fired their pieces ; but 
the greater number collected into the many roads which cross obliquely 
up its steep face, and went on to the top. 

“ Some regiments pressed on and swarmed up the steep sides of the 
Ridge, and here and there a color was advanced beyond the lines. The 
attempt appeared most dangerous ; but the advance was supported, and 
the whole line was ordered to storm the heights, upon which not less 
than forty pieces of artillery, and no one knows how many muskets, stood 
ready to slaughter the assailants. With cheers answering to cheers, the 
men swarmed upward. They gathered to the points least difficult of ac¬ 
cess, and the line was broken. Color after color was planted on the 
summit, while musket and cannon vomited their thunder upon them. 

“ A well-directed shot from Orchard Knob exploded a rebel caisson on 
the summit and the gun was seen being speedily taken to the right, its 
driver lashing his horses. A parry of our soldiers intercepted them, and 
the gun was captured, with cheers. 

“A fierce musketry fight broke out to the left, where, between 
Thomas and Sherman, a mile or two of the ridge was still occupied by 
the rebels. 

“ Bragg left the house in which he had held his head-quarters, and 
rode to the rear, as our troops crowded the hill on either side of him. 

“ General Grant proceeded to the summit, and then only did we know 
its height. 

‘ ‘ Some of the captured artillery was put into position. Artillerists 
were sent for to work the guns, and caissons were searched for ammu¬ 
nition. 

“The rebel log-breastworks were torn to pieces and carried to the 
other side of the ridge and used in forming barricades across. 

“ A strong line of infantry was formed in the rear of Baird’s line, and 

18 


274 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


engaged in a musketry contest with the rebels to the left, and a secure 
lodgment was soon effected. 

“ The other assault to the right of our centre gained the summit, and 
the rebels threw down their arms and fled. 

“ Hooker, coming into favorable position, swept the right of the ridge 
and captured many prisoners. 

“ Bragg’s remaining troops left early in the night, and the battle of 
Chattanooga, after days of manoeuvering and fighting, was won. The 
strength of the rebellion in the centre is broken. Burnside is relieved 
from danger, in East Tennessee. Kentucky and Tennessee are rescued. 
Georgia and the Southeast are threatened in the rear, and another vic¬ 
tory is added to the chapter of ‘ Unconditional Surrender Grant.’ 

“ To-night the estimate of captures is several thousand prisoners and 
thirty pieces of artillery. 

“ Our loss for so great a victory is not severe. 

‘‘Bragg is firing the railroad as he retreats towards Dalton. Sherman 
is in hot pursuit. 

“ To-day I viewed the battle field, which extends for six miles along 
Missionary Ridge and for several miles on Lookout Mountain. 

“ Probably not so well-directed, so well ordered a battle has taken 
place during the war. But one assault was repulsed; but that assault, 
by calling to that point the rebel reserves, prevented them repulsing any 
of the others. 

“ A few days since General Bragg sent to General Grant a flag of truce, 
advising him that it would be prudent to remove any non-combatants 
who might be still in Chattanooga. No reply has been returned ; but 
the combatants having removed from this vicinity, it is probable that 
non-combatants can remain without imprudence. 

“ M. C. Meigs, Quartermaster-General.” 

Thus -was the great victory of Chattanooga won. The star of General 
Grant’s military fame now rose far above the horizon. He had cap¬ 
tured Forts Henry and Donaldson, and opened up the Tennessee and Cum¬ 
berland rivers ; whipped the great rebel army on the 6th and 7th of 
April, 1862, at Pittsburg Landing, and Shiloh, killing its commander, Al¬ 
bert Sidney Johnson, the bravest and most skillful officer among the in¬ 
surgents. Beauregard, after the defeat of the 7th, fell back with the 
balance of the rebel troops to his works at Corinth. On the 29th of 
May, General Grant forced him to evacuate that stronghold. At Iuka, 
he again met and defeated the enemy ; Price and Van Dorn, with a large 
army, made up mostly of Missourian, Arkansian, and Texan adventurers, 
about 50,000 strong, under command of General Van Dorn, who made a 
desperate effort on the 3d, 4th, and 5th of October, to retake Corinth and 


APPOINTED LIEUTENANT GENERAL. 


275 


capture the Union army, as he had before defeated Buckner, Johnston, 
and Beauregard. He now almost annihilates the new combination under 
Van Dorn.* Thus far he had baffled and defeated all the plans of the 
rebel commanders. Pemberton, by holding Vicksburg, blockaded the 
Mississippi river. This great river had to be opened down to the sea, 
and in order to do it, Vicksburg had to. be taken. All the rebel troops 
that could be spared were sent to Pemberton to assist in holding the 
place. But after a few months of incessant toil, hard fighting, and dis¬ 
play of generalship the world had never seen, this great stronghold 
was captured. Port Hudson fell as a consequence, and the great Father 
of Waters now became open, and Uncle Sam’s war-dogs of the flood (the 
gunboats) everywhere patroled it, defiantly stopping to show their teeth 
to angry-whipped guerillas that lurked on its shores; then came food 
by vessels, and very soon it became the highway for commerce as of 
old, from St Louis to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Then the great battle of Chattanooga, of which General Halleck re¬ 
marks : “ Considering the strength of the rebel position and the difficul¬ 
ty of storming his entrenchments, the battle of Chattanooga must be con¬ 
sidered the most remarkable in history. For General Grant’s great ser¬ 
vices he received a vote of thanks by the Congress of the United States, 
with appropriations for a gold medal; and President Lincoln approved 
the resolution, December 17th, 1863. 

This medal on one side presents a profile of the General, surrounded by 
a laurel wreath, beneath which is his name, and the dates of his victories. 
On the obverse is the figure of Fame reclining on the American eagle, 
shielded ; Fame holding in her right hand a trumpet, and in her left a 
scroll on which is inscribed “ Vicksburg, Corinth, Mississippi River, 
Chattanooga ; ” on her head an ornamented helmet. Beneath all are 
represented sprigs of pine and palm intertwined ; while over all are the 
words. “ Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land .” 

While at Nashville, Tenn., perfecting some arrangement for the divis¬ 
ion of the Mississippi, Gen. Grant issued the following order assuming 
command of the armies of the United States : 

“ Headquarters of the Armies of the United States, 

“ Nashville, Tennessee, March 17,1864. 

“ In pursuance of the following order of the President: 

“ ‘Executive Mansion, Washington, March 10, 1864. 

“ ‘ Under the authority of the act of Congress to appoint to the grade 


* Dr. Peters of Arkansas afterwards shot Van Dorn for seducing his wife, 
blowing out his brains instantly. 



276 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


of Lieutenant-General in the army, of March 1st, Lieutenant-General 
Ulysses S. Grant, United State Army, is appointed to the command of 
the armies of the United States. “ ‘ Abraham Lincoln.’ 

• “ I assume command of the Armies of the United States. Heaquarters 
will be in the field, and, until further orders, will he with the Army of 
the Potomac. There will he an office headquarters in Washington, to 
which all official communications will he sent, except those from the 
Army where the headquarters are at the date of their address. 

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General 

On the 23 of March, 1864, General Grant again arrived at Washington, 
accompanied hy his wife and son. Brig. Gen. Rawlings, Col. Buff, Maj. 
Rawley, and Capt. Bedeau, of the General’s staff, were with him. In a 
few days he had established his headquarters in the Army of the PotomaG, 
at Culpepper Court House. 

On the 24th of March, 1864, a re-organization of the Army of the Po¬ 
tomac was effected. The number of army corps were reduced to three ; 
the Second, under command of Major-General Winfield S. Hancock; the 
Fifth, under command of Major-General G. W. Warren ; and the Sixth, 
under command of General Sedgwick. On the fourth of April, 1864, 
Major-General Sheridan was placed in command of the cavalry corps. 
Division officers were also re-assigned. 

The plan suggested by General Scott, and adopted hy McClellan, and 
submitted hy him to President Lincoln in his memorandum of August 
4th, 1861, just before his appointment as General in Chief, was the crush¬ 
ing of the seceding states by a system known as the anaconda strategy. 
This plan had proved a grievous failure, besides the Young Napoleon 
was without the requisite ability to discover the key-point of the enemy’s 
position. Like the Athenian General Nicias, before Syracuse, he was 
feeble and vacillating, and looked for civilians to sympathize with his 
imbecility. He had long endeavored to cover his own inefficiency by 
creating needless difficulties in his superior’s way ; and after a weak and 
sickly existence of four hundred and seventy days, his frail and feeble 
military life, so expensive to the nation, was brought to a close. Dis¬ 
affected towards his superiors, and dissatisfied with himself, he 
joined the Copperhead faction, and entered the political arena and be¬ 
came the leader of all the sympathizers with the rebel cause in the 
free states, and engaged in organizing them politically to make a 
cowardly charge against the Administration, hoping to prove successful, 
and thereby retrieve his reputation lost in the field. The failure of his 
successors, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, to become more successful, 
cast a shadow over the policy of his removal, and caused a doubt in 


PREPARING FOR THE CONFLICT. 


277 


the soldiers’ minds whether it had been dictated by wisdom; from a 
murmur they were passing into discontent. In fact, if it had not been for 
General Meade’s great victory at Gettysburg, which convinced the Po¬ 
tomac army that others could lead them to victory, serious consequences 
might have resulted from the change, although three years’ of bitter 
warfare had accomplished little for the Union cause in Yirgina; 
yet Grant, with his troops had driven the rebel forces back from 
the Ohio, the Tennessee, and opened up the great Mississippi. The 
rebels themselves were compelled to acknowledge the western troops, 
equal to their own, and now Pickett’s, Wilson’s, and Pettigrew’s rebel 
divisions, who made the charge on Meade’s centre (McPherson’s heights), 
on Friday, July 3d, 1863, were satisfied that no braver men ever lived 
than those comprising the gallant but badly managed army of the Poto¬ 
mac. Pickett’s division lost every brigadier officer, and out of twenty- 
four regimental officers, only two remained unhurt; the other two divis¬ 
ions suffered nearly as much. This great victory convinced the army of 
the Potomac that Lee could be conquered. Inspired by new hope, Mc¬ 
Clellan and defeat passed from their minds together, and watching they 
patiently waited for the coming man. While this victory gave confidence 
to the army and friends of the government, the news of Lee’s defeat and 
the fall of Vicksburg reached the rebel capital on the same day; and like 
the previous fall of Fort Donaldson and New Orleans, cast a dark shadow 
over the rebel cause, while McClellan was passing into oblivion. The 
sword that Grant wielded over Vicksburg had gained him the position 
of the first soldier of the Union. He had not only triumphed over great 
natural difficulties and elaborate defences, but his strategic march on the 
enemy’s rear, and his after patient watching, placed in the military horizon 
another brilliant star ; and then the surprise and ford of the river near 
Bragg’s centre by Smith, and the manoeuvring by which the confederate 
lines were forced by Grant, a month later, at the battle of Chattanooga, are, 
as tactical achievements, far fitter to be classed with the best feats of 
Napoleon and Wellington, than any advantage won by any European Gen¬ 
eral since the days of those giants in war. 

It was no blind stroke such as won the Alma and Magenta, but simply 
a judicious use of the means at command, with ardor strong enough for a 
soldier, and coolness sufficient for a general; he watches with an eagle- 
eye the progress of the battle, and like Miltiades, on the plain of 
Marathon, or the great Macedonian at Arbela, is prepared to strike 
the decisive blow at the right time. Although Grant heretofore had 
been everywhere successful in the Southwest, yet he had never meas¬ 
ured arms with Lee, who was acknowledged the best general in the con¬ 
federate service, and his troops were the flower of the rebel army. Mc¬ 
Clellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, had never beenable to conquer him, 


278 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


and the country was held in breathless suspense dreading that their hopee 
and expectation in Grant’s success might never be realized. One of the 
grandest campaigns on record, surpassing any thing reeorded in Persian, 
Macedonian, or Roman history, and all under the command of the Lieu- 
nant-General was now about to commence; Sherman to pursue Johnston 
in Georgia, Gen. Banks on Red River, and General Steele in Arkansas, 
with Butler on the right bank of the James, threatening the rebel Capital. 

The combinations were of a magnitude hitherto unknown in war. 
They extended over a vast territory from the Chesapeake Bay, on the At¬ 
lantic, to the Gulf of Mexico, thence northward through the great Indian 
Territory to the upper country of Missouri, and striking eastward includ¬ 
ed Tennessee and all the states in Rebellion. Having forwared his ord¬ 
ers to his Lieutenants in the different portions of the vast field over 
which he was master, the Lieutenant-General, accompanied by several 
of his staff officers, made a tour of survey of all the Union forces in 
Virginia. 

By orders of Gen. Grant, active measures were taken to get into the 
field all recruits, new organizations and troops that could be spared. 
Reinforcements were constantly pouring into the army of the Potomac. 
The notes of military preparation all over the country indicated the near 
approach of a vigorous campaign. Now the Lieutenat-General is 
on a tour of inspection, then he is closeted with the authorities at Wash¬ 
ington, until the close of April, 1864, when all the preliminaries seemed 
to have been settled. Civilians and sutlers are ordered out of the lines, 
and no more passes are granted to applicants for admission. Meantime 
Lee was not idle. He busied himself in the erection of additional fortifi¬ 
cations along the south bank of the Rapidan, in anticipation of the com¬ 
ing contest. But Grant was not disposed to wait on the development of 
Lee’s plans. 

He had well-digested plans of his own, which he prepared to put in 
execution, and until the early part of May, 1864, he labored incessantly, 
concentrating his valiant troops preliminary to the grand onward move¬ 
ment. 

THE GRAND ADVANCE. 

On the 3d of May, 1864, General Grant advanced from Culpepper Court 
House to the Rapidan, part of his army crossing at Ely’s Ford, and part 
at Germania Ford. Lee was now in a position selected by himself, and 
on the night of the 4th was engaged in preparing for battle. The 
battle ground occupied by him was a broken table land, irregular 
in its conformation, and densely covered with dwarf timber and under¬ 
growth. The rebels had taken their position near its edge, leaving an 
open country at the back of Grant’s army. It was well known to Lee 
that Grant was strong in artillery, and he had selected this position on 


BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. 


279 


account of the knolly character of the ground, in conjunction with this 
timber, to prevent him from using it. 

After some delay with the corps, the standard of the army of the Poto¬ 
mac, was struck in the earth near the old Wilderness Tavern, and on 
Thursday the generals began to gather around it. The brave and calcu¬ 
lating Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, was there with his gray beard, 
Hancock, Warren, Sedgwick, and many other generals, examining maps 
and consulting about the coming fight. At last Warren gallopped off at the 
head of his column, a little to the left of the Wilderness Tavern, and in a 
short time his army was in line of battle, passing in the direction of Orange 
Court House, showing Griffin’s division in line of battle far to the front. The 
contest soon grew from picket-firing to skirmishing, and from skirmishing 
to battle, and by twelve o’clock, meridian, the action had fairly "commenced. 
From Warren’s lines the battle spread to Sedgwick’s early in the afternoon ; 
this heoric officer fought the ground over, pressing the rebels back, inch by 
incb, until they long before night became sick of the sport, and the action 
dwindled into a skirmish. On the left, Hancock gave Longstreet a lesson 
m the art of war : here the conflict was terrific. As the evening came on 
the contest along the entire lines ceased, only an occasional shot being fired 
to show that the enemy was yet in his well chosen position. Grant was on 
the field during the day, and expressed himself well satisfied with the pro¬ 
gress that had been made. In the evening he perfected his plans for renew¬ 
ing the battle the next morning. 

Early Friday morning the contest was renewed along the entire line, but 
fiercest before Hancock’s division. Lee had determined to force his lines, 
and sent Longstreet, backed with heavy reinforcements, to accomplish the 
object. Twice Hancock was driven back to his breastworks, and once the 
rebels had so far succeeded as to plant their colors on his field works, but 
the stay was short. The conflict was now terrific. Such fighting as 
Hancock did that day, for bravery, could never have been surpassed. Back 
and forth—first charged and then charging—until hundreds of the dead 
bodies of Union and rebel soldiers lay side by side in their last sleep. 

At last, Burnside with the ninth corps, came to his relief, when he was 
allowed a breathing spell. Later in the day, Sedgwick’s hour of trial came. 
In the forenoon they made a desperate effort to turn Grant’s left, and 
now, in the afternoon, they revived the effort on the extreme right. 
A. P. Hill was commanding the enemy, and two of the Union brigades, on 
the extreme right, commanded by Seymour and Staler, were swallowed up 
by the impetuous charge of the yelling rebels. They almost caused a route 
in this part of the army, but Sedgwick, bold and ever brave, took ad¬ 
vantage of the reflux, which always follows the first impetus of a charge, and 
formed the corps and drove the enemy beyond his breastworks and plucked 
safety, if not victory, out of danger. 


280 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


The teamsters and straggling soldiers who had been watching this 
fearful conflict from a safe distance, just as night set in commenced a 
stampede. This wild scene lasted about one hour and a half, when it 
was checked by the iron hand of military law. The rebels still impetuous 
made a night attack on Warren’s line ; this was a desperate resort of Lee. 
How differently he acted from Alexander the Great, when his veteran 
general, Parmenio, came and proposed a night attack on the Persians. 
“ I scorn to filch a victory ; Alexander must conquer openly and fairly,” 
was the reply of the great Macedonian. 

Notwithstanding the 5th corps was thrown into confusion and driven 
back by the night assault, the rebel skirmishers came close up to Meade 
and Grant’s headquarters. While this was going on every officer and 
private could see only defeat. But the great chieftain was commencing 
a flank movement. There was no Boeotian brigade as at Syracuse, to 
defeat and repel the night attack made by Demosthenes ; although Grant 
did not succeed like Gylippus, the Spartan general, in defeating and 
capturing the enemy, yet his flanking movement almost turned a defeat 
into a victory. His right had been turned and Germania Ford was in 
the hands of the enemy, and his loss in the battle could not have 
been less than 15,000; yet by daylight nearly all the trains had passed 
to the left of the right center, but no one could even guess the purport 
of the movement. 

On Saturday Grant had possession of the road to within two and a half 
miles of Spottsylvania Court House, and a little after midnight the same 
day, his headquarters were at Todd’s Tavern. Some skirmishing had 
gone on during this movement and another desperate conflict came 
off on Sabbath evening, General Wright’s division taking the lead. 
Mill’s brigade and the Jersey troops were once more in the thickest of 
the fight. Yet Spottsylvania Court House still remained that night in 
the hands of the rebels. On Monday General Sedgwick w T as inspecting 
the pickets in front, attended by two of his staff, when a ball from a 
rebel sharp-shooter struck him below the eye passing upwardly through 
the brain, killing him instantly. 

On the same day a train of ambulances containing some thirteen thou¬ 
sand wounded, were attacked and turned back at Ely’s Ford. They fi¬ 
nally proceeded to Fredericksburg where every house was converted into 
a hospital. Hancock changed his position during Monday night, so as 
to be in line of battle one mile and a half in advance, driving the enemy 
before him. At ten o’clock Cutter’s division of the Fifth corps advanced 
and formed in line of battle to the right and rear of Hancock’s left. This 
division was within musket range of a piece of woods filled with rebels 
and maintained their position nearly the entire day, subject to terrible 
artillery and musketry fire of the enemy, which they returned with great 


BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. 


281 


effect. A portion of Griffin’s division were sent to drive the rebels out 
of the woods held by them on the right of the Fifth corps. They en¬ 
tered the woods by brigades which were relieved alternately, and for 
hours the deadly and determined fight continued. Batteries D and H of 
the First New York Artillery did fine execution from their position on 
the left of these woods. Cooper’s First Pennsylvania Battery was held 
in reserve on the brow of a hill ready to cover any reverse our men 
who were fighting so desperately in the woods in front might sustain. 
At twelve o’clock General Rice, who was gallantly leading the Fourth di¬ 
vision of the Fifth corps into action, was struck in the knee with a rebel 
musket ball was carried the rear and died that afternoon. His divi¬ 
sion was constantly engaged during the day and for three hours without 
intermission, was subject to a murderous and galling fire from different 
directions of the enemy. From ten o’clock in the morning until 
night set in, the battle raged with fury. Division after division went 
into the woods and pressed steadily forward. No column returned ex¬ 
cept to take a rest at the edge of the woods while being relieved by 
others. The roar of artillery, the sharp rolling of musketry, and burst¬ 
ing of shells, was absolutely fearful. Two divisions of Hancock’s corps 
changed positions early in the afternoon, and after a little rest went into 
the woods with great spirit engaging the enemy. Wright’s corps during 
the morning was engaged in shelling the woods to the right which were 
filled with rebels. Early in the afternoon the rebels retired to a safer 
position. About dark the general headquarters was removed a mile 
nearer the front, affording General Grant and Meade a fine view of the 
operations of the enemy. About this time a line of rebel intrenchments 
was assaulted and carried, our men actually crawling over them on their 
hands and knees and precipitating themselves on the other side. Upton’s 
brigade of the Sixth corps was attacked by a large body of confederates, 
some of whom got in their rear, but before this engagement was over 
two thousand of the rebels and several pieces of artillery were cap¬ 
tured. During this days engagement Lee moved a large body of troops 
in front of Grant’s center, for the purpose of breaking his lines and as a 
ruse sent two brigades of infantry to make a demonstration on the right. 
Grant was the last to be deceived and commenced to make his center 
doubly strong. When Lee began to assault the center he soon dis¬ 
covered that his feint on Grant’s right did not have the desired effect. 
His new adversary had concentrated a superior force in the right place 
and at the right time. The only result of this movement of Lee, was to 
mass troops on both sides and when he made the assault, to his great 
surprise, he found Grant ready. 

The fighting of this day was of an extraordinary character ; many thou¬ 
sands of men were killed and a large number of officers. The old veter- 


282 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


ans of the Potomac army said it surpassed all engagements they had yet 
seen on the Peninsula. On Wednesday morning, May 11th, the battle 
was renewed at Spottsylvania, Grant’s lines being somewhat advanced. 
At eleven o’clock A. M. Lee sent a flag asking a forty-eight hour truce 
that he might have time to bury his dead. Grant’s reply was : “ I have 
no time to bury my own dead but propose an immediate advance.” 
With this reply he pushed forward, his advanced lines shelling the 
woods, but no response was met from where the enemy’s center had 
been a few hours before. The rebel prisoners captured on Tuesday and 
Wednesday, numbered four thousand, and the dead and wounded covered 
almost every foot of the ground, when the Union troops surged forward 
and the rebels gave way. The slaughter on both sides was appalling 
but the rebels suffered the most. General Grant sent the following tele¬ 
graph to Secretary Stanton : 

Headquarters in the Field, May 11, 1864, 8 A. M. 

“ We have now ended the sixth day of very heavy fighting. The re¬ 
sult, to this time, is much in our favor. 

‘ ‘ Our losses have been heavy as well as those of the enemy. I think 
the loss of the enemy must be greater. 

“We have taken over five thousand prisoners by battle, while he has 
taken from us but few, except stragglers. 

“ I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer .” 

U. S. Grant. 

“ Lieut.-General, Commanding the Armies of the United States .” 

General Grant must have felt certain that victory was within his grasp 
when he sent the above dispatch. He had now reached the key of the 
rebel position, for the same evening he ordered General Hancock to 
move during the night close up to the intrenchments, held by the rebel 
general Ewell’s corps. Slowly and surely Hancock’s men crept forward, 
and at dawn they were close upon the sleeping and unsuspecting enemy. 
At the proper moment the order to charge was given, and with a loud 
yell Hancock’s men leaped over the rebel intrenchments and with the 
butts of their muskets (the quarters were too close to fire) commenced to 
slay the enemy right and left. They were surrounded, cornered,and dumb¬ 
founded, and when they were commanded to surrender they dropped 
their arms and became prisoners of war. Even the artillery had not 
time to limber up, get away, or fire one single volley. The general E. 
Johnston, whose headquarters was somewhat to the rear, had no time to 
escape. The result of this great movement was the capture of the 
commanding general with nearly his entire division as prisoners of war, 
and nearly twenty pieces of artillery. Hancock’s entire corps had ad- 


283 


COLD HARBOR AND GAINERS MILLS. 

vanced during the morning, the rebels contesting every point with great 
determination, yet the gallant corps continued to advance, and before 
noon the entire line was engaged in a fierce and bloody strife. After 
seven days severe fighting, amid drenching rain, volleys of musketry, 
and roar of artillery, wearied but not disheartened, the gallant heroes 
pressed on driving the remaining part of the enemy back nearly four 
miles. Lee was thus forced to abandon his strong position on the Rap- 
idan and fall back. He endeavored to stop the advance of the Union 
army, but he had now been forced to abandon his last entrenched posi¬ 
tion with a loss of eighteen guns, twenty colors, and eight thousand 
prisoners, including two general officers. Thus, the enemy sullenly and 
reluctantly was driven from the Rapidan. During the eight days and 
nights that the engagement lasted, many thousands went to their long 
home. The victory, though dearly bought, was gained, and Lee 
through this terrible conflict was made to realize the coming fate of the 
Southern Confederacy. During this eventful time General Sherman was 
making his famous flank movement which compelled Johnston to evacu¬ 
ate Dalton, Georgia, and General Butler was defeating the rebels on the 
south side of the James. Sheridan with his cavalry was destroying the 
railroad bridge over the Chickahominy river, fighting a battle at Yellow 
Tavern with the rebel general Stewart, and charging down the Brock 
Road actually capturing the first line of the enemy’s works on that side 
of Richmond. 

On the 13th of May, Burnside with the ninth corps lay across the pike 
leading from Spottsylvania Court House to Fredericksburg, about two 
miles from the former place ; here he had a severe engagement with A. 
P. Hill. Although Burnside moved early to the attack, he found the 
rebels over a mile in front of their breastworks waiting his coming ; the 
fight commenced and the rebels were soon pushed back into their first 
line of fortifications, and then forced to take refuge in their main line of 
entrenchments. Burnside renewed the attack in the afternoon, but a 
flanking brigade of rebels captured a portion of the Fifty-First Pennsylva¬ 
nia, One Hundred and Ninth New York, and the Seventeenth Michigan 
regiments. Burnside gained a better position than he had at the com¬ 
mencement of the fight, but with a loss of near 3,000 men. The roads 
were very bad, and it was difficult to move, and little was done until Lee 
weary and disheartened showed signs of attempting a retreat. On the 
18th Grant renewed the attack; the assault was commenced early, 
but the rebels were not again to be found napping ; by this move Grant 
soon discovered the enemy strongly posted behind breastworks. On 
the 19th Ewell’s corps made an attempt to turn Grant’s right, but was 
severely punished by Birney and Tyler’s divisions. Grant had now re¬ 
ceived about 25,000 splendid fresh troops forwarded to him to make up 


284 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


his losses during the terrific battles on the Rapidan. On the 20th of May 
he by the flanking process compelled Lee to abandon his strong works at 
Spottsylvania Court House, the rebels retreating towards Richmond ; 
Grant’s army in pursuit. Falling behind the North Anna river, Lee took 
up another strong position by marching the fifth and sixth corps by way 
of Harris’s Store to Jerrico Ford ; the sixth corps crossing, Lee was again 
flanked, and compelled to abandon his strong position on the North 
Anna, and fell back to the South Anna river. Here Lee’s position was 
discovered to be one of great strength, and Grant deeming it only a waste 
of life to make an assault, recrossed the North Anna river, moving 
his army in the direction of Hanover Junction. Thus out generaling and 
flanking Lee’s position on the South Anna, he forced him again to abandon 
his elaborately constructed fortifications. By these master strategic 
movements, it became evident to all the corps and division commanders 
in Grant’s army that he had outmanoeuvered Lee, and drove him from all 
his positions, using him merely as his mouthpiece, as lie had previously 
used Bragg at Chattanooga. It could be seen by all that it was Grant and 
not Lee that was commanding the rebel army. General Sheridan with 
his cavalry had taken possession of the Hanover Ferry and all points 
designated for bringing the army over the Pamunkey river, and by the 
29th Grant’s entire force was across and encamped in a fertile country 
only fifteen miles from Richmond. By this great move he turned all 
Lee’s works on the Little river and the South Anna, avoiding the 
hazard of crossing these strongly defended streams ; by this strategy he 
became master of the situation with regard to his new base of supplies, 
and he was now left to choose his own rout to the rebel capital, and all 
this had been accomplished in twenty-four days from the day he struck 
tents at Culpepper Court House,without leaving, as previous commanders 
did, one fourth of his army behind for the defence of the capital,—he was 
now master of the peninsula without having uncovered Washington for a 
single hour. 

It was the same strategy that made the march from Bruinsburg to 
Vicksburg one unbroken series of victories. In the march Grant cut 
himself loose from his base, but he always fixed a point to open a new 
one. Raymond was his first, Warrenton just below Vicksburg his second, 
and the Yazoo river just above the city was his final and last, until Vicks¬ 
burg fell; this last, the Yazoo was hit upon by his far seeing vision at 
the commencement. Raymond and Warrenton were only calculated as 
auxiliaries to secure it. Just so he moved in his present campaign 
against Richmond. In his new base he could open communication with 
General Butler, and with the two armies, when occasion required ; and 
he could now supply his troops from the Pamunkey or the James at his 
option. 


CROSSING THE JAMES. 


285 


Such mighty achievements can only be done by a master in the art of 
war, and as he made the month of May 1863, ever memorable by his stiategy 
in his campaign of the Southwest; so his illustrious achievements in May 
1864 on the Peninslua will be cherished and remembered as long as re¬ 
turning spring continues to deck the banks of the Rapidan, the Anna, 
the Pamunkey, and James with its fragrant flowers. The month of June 
opened with another fight with the rebels at Cold Harbor, on Friday 
about seven P.M. June 3d, the rebels made an attack on Smith’s bri¬ 
gade of Gibson’s division. Fighting around Cold Harbor continued for 
about three days. At last Grant commenced gradually drawing the 
lines around them, they fought desperately as usual; our entire loss 
killed wounded and missing during the three days engagements was 
7,500 men. Grant was extending his. lines to the Chickahominy, and 
the White House was now the base of supplies for his army. On the 
12th of June he commenced his great flank movement from Lee’s front 
at Cold Harbor and Game’s Mills. Such a movement is the most dangerous 
in the art of war. McClellan in changing his base in 1862, was harrassed 
at every step, his army had occupied both sides of the Chicahominy, 
by doing this he made a weak and dangerous extension of his lines, the 
part on the north side of that river was driven on the 26th of June 
across to the south side of the stream. McClellan now commenced his 
retreat to Harrison’s Landing, his army fighting by day and retreating 
by night, so when the army on the seventh day reached Harrison’s Land¬ 
ing, fifteen thousand men who had been with him on the Chickahominy, 
were no longer in the ranks ; the greater part were lying mangled and 
bleeding on the line of retreat, or sleeping their last sleep. But how dif¬ 
ferent the ability displayed by Grant, who withdrew his entire army to the 
banks of the James, coming out at Wilcox’s Warf, and crossing at Paw- 
hatan Point; leaving Cold Harbor Sunday night, the troops were in posi¬ 
tion for crossing the James river in thirty hours, and in six hours more 
the entire army with scarcely the loss of a man was landed on the south 
side of the James river. On Wednesday General Smith commenced an 
attack on Petersburg ; several efforts were made to carry the place by as¬ 
sault,but Grant was convinced that the Cockade City could only be captured 
by a protracted siege. General Wilson with six thousand picked troops 
was sent to destroy the Weldon and South Side railroads ; the former 
was struck at Reams Station, and the later at Ford’s Station, and some 
sixty miles of track, together with bridges, cars, and locomotives were 
destroyed. General Wright with the 6th coi^ps cooperated with Wilson 
by moving on the Weldon road below Petersburg, and destroying about 
five miles of track. Lee becoming worried and disheartened, thought to 
divert Grant from his well settled purpose, sent Breckenridge on a raid 
against Washington; but Grant could not be induced to withdraw his 


286 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


army from the James. Breckenridge went and made the feint, and was 
defeated, leaving 500 of his men killed and wounded under the guns of 
Fort Stephen. 

The explosion of Burnside’s mine under one of the largest rebel forts 
at Petersburg, blew up a South Carolina regiment, and wrecked the 
interior of the work. General Burnside in the assaulting of the works 
after the explosion, lost over two thousand men, killed, wounded, and 
missing. The rebel loss was about 1,200; this was all the impor¬ 
tant action that occured before Petersburg during the balance of the 
summer of 1864. But the mighty chieftain was not idle, he had so dis¬ 
tributed his army that his lieutenants were hammering away at the sea¬ 
ports of the rebellion at every point of the compass, having forced Lee 
from the Rapidan, and compelled him to coop himself up behind his 
Richmond defences. Sherman was also showing himself to be master of 
the rebel armies of the Southwest by the capture of Atlanta, September 2d. 

GEN. SHERIDAN’S GREAT VICTORY. 

BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK, VA., OCTOBER 19, 1864. 

This able commander was sent to the Shenandoah Valley, to take com¬ 
mand of the forces, in the latter part of September, and prevent the advance 
of the rebels into Pennsylvania and Maryland. 

The Richmond authorities, fearing that Grant had sent him for the pur¬ 
pose of advancing on Richmond from that direction, sent a command to the 
rebel Gen. Early to drive Sheridan and his army out of the Valley. 

The Union general had been at Washington, in consultation with the Sec¬ 
retary of War; and, with other commanders, stopped on his way back to 
his camp at Winchester. Early took advantage of the fog and absence of 
Sheridan, to make a desperate attack on the Union army. On the 19th of Oc¬ 
tober, just before daylight the pickets were driven in, and the rebels, in 
hot pursuit, entered the Union camp at the same time. Such a large body 
of rebel infantry soon threw the left wing of Sheridan’s army into confusion. 
The Fourteenth Pennsylvania, and a portion of the regular battery, fell into 
the hands of the rebels. The confusion almost reached a panic. Cook’s 
corps was scarcely allowed time to form, but finally succeeded, and was 
soon joined by part of Thornburn’s division. During all this time the rebels 
were pouring an incessant fire from both infantry and artillery. All this 
was done before daylight, and following up their success, they made a 
charge on the 19th corps, Emery’s command, taking one or two guns of 
the First Maine battery and some of Chase’s. The rebels had got the 
range and were using their artillery with great effect. 

The gray dawn of an October morning was the first to reveal the desper¬ 
ate situation of the left wing of the Union army. When the rebels discov- 


BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 


287 


ered their advantage, they began to bring their artillery across Cedar Creek, 
and press hard up. The entire Union army was concentrating and slowly 
falling back. Gen. Sheridan, as we before stated, was at Winchester 
hearing the booming of cannon, while it was yet dark, in the direction of 
his army. He started at half-past seven o’clock, A. M., and in two hours 
arrived at the scene of action. On his way he met a great number of teams, 
stragglers, and wounded men, going to the rear. Such a sight would have 
discouraged most men, but nothing daunted he pushed on only to witness 
a worse condition of affairs than he had expected. The army was in 
confusion. It had no confidence in itself. But his presence inspired all 
with new hope. The change was like magic. He immediately reorgan¬ 
ized his forces that he had just met on retreat, putting the cavalry on 
the right, the Nineteenth Corps next to it, the Eighth Corps in the cen¬ 
tre, and the Sixth Corps with Powell’s division on the left. Thus organ¬ 
ized, a furious attack was made on the rebel army about one o’clock, 
P. M. For two hours the fight was desperate, but at three o’clock the 
rebels gave way. Sheridan was everywhere to be seen urging his men 
to press on after the retreating foe, which had become a rout. The 
rebels being chased through the streets of Middletown, and on to Mount 
Jackson, over 2,000 broke and ran down the mountain, throwing away 
arms, knapsacks and blankets, to aid in securing safety. The rebel loss 
was about 3,000 killed, 7,000 prisoners, many of them wounded, 55 can¬ 
non, a great number of small arms, ten battle flags, and over 300 wagons 
and ambulances. The Union officers suffered severely, in one of General 
Grover’s brigades, every field officer being killed or disabled; in another 
only three were left. The Union loss in killed, wounded, and missing, 
was 4086. For this great victory, President Lincoln sent Gen. Sheridan 
the following letter: 


“Executive Mansion, Washington, Oct. 22, 1864. 

“ Major-General Sheridan— With great pleasure I tender to you and 
your brave army the thanks of the nation, and my own personal admira-’ 
tion and gratitude for the month’s operations in the Shenandoah Valley, 
and especially for the splendid work of October 19. 

Your obedient servant, 


“Abraham Lincoln.” 


General Grant, never having any faith in the anaconda strategy, al¬ 
ways believed that the rebellion was more like an empty egg-shell, and 
could be penetrated almost as easy, agreed and arranged with General 
Sherman to make his great expedition through the heart of the confed¬ 
eracy, which has crowned that great soldier’s name with immortality. 

Grant had now got Lee in a position that he could spare no troops 


288 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


from Virginia. It was even doubtful, whether he could long protect the 
rebel capital,—Sherman at Savannah, Hood’s army captured, and Gen. 
Price driven out of Missouri, Early used up by Sheridan in the Shenan¬ 
doah, Breckinridge checkmated in East Tennessee, Canby operating effec¬ 
tually in Louisiana, and preparing to capture Mobile, and Grant at Rich¬ 
mond holding Lee in a vice from which there was no escape,—these were 
the darkest days the rebellion had yet seen. It was well understood the 
flower of its youth and the days of its manhood were passed. Its greatest 
efforts, all its heroic achievements -were forever gone, unanimated and 
dying, its huge form lay stretched from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, 
unable to give one more cheer, or do another defiant deed. 

The year 1865 opened with cheering prospects for the Union cause. 
Sherman, with his invincible army, had left Georgia on his northward 
march. The principal nests of treason, Columbia and Charleston, were 
captured, and all the rebel strongholds embraced in the mighty combi¬ 
nations on the seaboard and interior of Georgia, South Carolina, including 
Fort Fisher and Wilmington, in North Carolina, (the latter had long been 
the rebel inlet to British pirates, British arms, British amunition, Brit¬ 
ish goods, and British treachery,) all these had been captured and were 
now being held by the grand divisions of the Union army. The Great 
Campaign commenced in March. Canby aided by the fleet, was batter¬ 
ing away at Mobile ; Gen. Wilson, with ten thousand picked cavalry, 
started from Eastport on an expedition through Alabama ; Sherman and 
Scofield, with their victorious hosts, approaching the Virginia State line. 
Johnston, whom the rebel press had boasted, was sent to annihilate the 
insolent foe, failed to impede or check their victorious march there. 

The rebel chief at Richmond saw all this, but he was apalled, and 
helpless and could only watch and wait. The rebel affairs every day be¬ 
came more critical. The rebel commander yet had an army of 50,000 tried 
men filling, and being protected by, the strong and numerous fortifications 
surrounding the doomed capital. Strategy was now beyond Lee’s reach, 
and his last hope was that Grant would attempt an assault upon these 
works. But as he had never before done what Lee desired or expected, 
he had little ground to expect it now. 

Grant had time to watch, but Lee could not afford to wait; his only 
hope was in prompt and immediate action. Thus at half-past four, A. M., 
March 25th, 1865, Lee sent Gordon, at the head of three rebel divisions, 
to attack Fort Steadman, on the right of Grant’s line. He soon over¬ 
powered the garrison and seized the fort, but the success was but tem¬ 
porary, for at the dawn of day Gen. Hartranft charged and re-captured it, 
killing and wounding over 3,000 rebels, and taking 2,700 prisoners. The 
reason of the great slaughter and our trifling loss, was our guns at the 
different forts were trained on the ground over which the rebels had to 


PREPARING FOR THE CONFLICT. 


289 


pass to re-gain their own line ; when they all opened fire, the slaughter 
was terrific. The capture of Gordon’s men gave Grant a full key to the 
mystery, and he ordered an immediate advance upon the extreme left of 
Hatcher’s run, which point Lee had weakened by the withdrawal of Gor¬ 
don’s forces. Several strong positions were taken by the advance, and 
Grant’s lines were extended to near the South Side railroad. The Union 
loss was 690; the rebel loss, killed, wounded and captured were about 
1600. The Second Corps also pushed forward and captured Fort Fisher 
and the entrenched picket line on the 29th. The Second Corps left their 
entrenchments near Hatcher’s Run, and advanced out along the Yaughn 
Road. The Fifth Corps, which had been stationed in the rear of the Sec¬ 
ond, at three and a half o’clock, A. M., started, going over by-roads 
across the country, so as to reach the Yaughn Road at a point beyond 
where the Second Corps was to march. Up to this time, Gen. Ayer’s 
division taking the lead, one brigade under Gen. Gwin was posted at 
Scott’s House to cover the Yaughn Road, while the remainder of the di¬ 
vision was held in reserve. Griffin’s division was then placed in advance. 
The column now left the Yaughn Road, at a point distant about four 
miles from Dinwiddie Court House, and advanced up the Quaker Road 
in the direction of Boydton Plank Road, some three miles distant. A 
short distance from here the troops found a line of abandoned rebel 
breastworks, from which their pickets had just retired. Skirmishers 
were now thrown forward, and sharp firing commenced ; the skirmish¬ 
ers crossing an open plateau, the further side of which Bushrod John¬ 
son’s rebel divisions were posted. The first brigade of Griffin’s division 
was now ordered forward to support the skirmishers, and when within 
rifle-shot of the woods, a tremendous volley of musketry greeted their 
advance, causing them to waver and fall back. The second brigade now 
came up to the support of the first, which caused the latter to rally and 
stand firm. In the meantime, battery B, of the First United States, was 
got into position and commenced firing with effect. While the fight was 
in progress, Gen. Warren was engaged in forming his line of battle on 
the right and left of the Quaker Road. The enemy seeing that a large 
force was being moved against them, retired to a point further back. 
Sheridan was on the extreme left at Dinwiddie Court House ; Meade’s 
headquarters were on the Vaughn Road, three miles beyond Hatcher’s 
Run, and Gen. Grant’s about a mile further out. 

March 31. t, in the morning, the rebels commenced an attack on Grant’s 
left, near Dabney’s House, and pressed it back towards Boydton 
Plank Road ; here their advance was checked, and the Union troops re¬ 
covering the lost ground, and driving the enemy, took possession of the 
White Oak Road, capturing four battle flags. 

April 1st, Gen. Sheridan fought the battle of Five Forks, doubling up 

19 


290 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


the right wing of the rebel army on the centre, and cutting a portion of 
it off. His triumph over Early, in the Shenandoah, was great; and his 
victory secured over Longstreet this day, was both great and glorious ; 
with Carter, Devons, and Davis of the cavalry corps, and Griffin, Ayers, 
Crawford and Bartlett of the Fifth Corps, he succeeded in dividing the 
rebel army under Lee, and capturing 5700 prisoners, and three batteries of 
rebel artillery. Longstreet, after his inglorious defeat, fled first north, 
then westward, hoping to effect a junction with Johnston in North Caro¬ 
lina. Lee’s line extended from Burgess’ Mill to the Appomattox. 
Grant believed it weak everywhere thus extended, but if massed at any 
one point might yet be formidable. Cannonading -was kept up during 
all Saturday night, and he had determined to assault the line that had re¬ 
mained defiant so long. It was known that Longstreet was not even 
making an effort to return to Petersburg. Grant’s ever powerful stra- 
getic mind conceived the plan of making an assault with the Ninth Corps 
immediately in front of Petersburg, in order to induce Lee to mass his 
force at that important point for defence. He had already placed the 
Sixth, Twenty-fourth, and Second Corps, secretly in front of Lee’s right. 
Some thought that he intended a raid on to Burksville, others to the South 
Side road, but no person except Meade and the corps commanders ever 
dreamed that he had matured all his plans to cut in two and annihilate 
the rebel army, and capture Petersburg and Richmond Yet it was all 
true, and a few hours only were needed to bring it to pass. The 
star of American glory was about to be unveiled ; a mightier achieve¬ 
ment was than history had yet recorded about to take place. The hearts 
of millions of the human race, unconscious of the coming hour, were 
to beat with gladness ; the strife would soon be over ; our last great 
victory soon be won. 


SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 2d. 

Holy day, commemorative of the Resurrection—momentous time ! It 
was on the 13th of Nisan (April 2d,) eighteen hundred and thirty-two 
years ago, the Saviour, sorrowful and sad, exposed and struggled against 
the treason of one of his followers. The mighty Ruler of events has, in 
his own wisdom, coupled the treachery of Judas with our slave-holders’ 
treason, there to moulder and blacken on the desert of Time, a monument 
reared to commemorate the foulest crimes in human history. As he 
has left them, we leave them, so mankind in future ages can see and 
remember them together. 

Sunday, April 2d, at four o’clock, A. M., the time for action had now 
come. General Parke, in front of Petersburg, was pressing close up to 
the town. His divisions were, Wilcox on the right resting on the Ap¬ 
pomattox ; Hartranft in the centre ; Potter, with the second division, was 


/ 


CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG. 291 

on the left, joining Wlieaten of the Sixth Corps. The plan was for Wil¬ 
cox to make a feint upon the rebel front on the Appomattox. It was 
promptly and vigorously made, the men creeping up to within a few feet 
of the rebel fort. At the word of command, the gallant First division 
sprang to its feet, and, with a yell, rushed on the work. At a quarter 
past four o’clock they were in the fort, having captured the garrison of 
fifty men and four guns. This was the feint of Wilcox. Hartranft and 
Potter advanced about the same time, and in the same manner, stealing 
up under cover of darkness, they, without firing a gun, sprang forward, 
capturing four forts, twenty-seven guns, and hundreds of prisoners. 
Thus at daylight Parke, without loss, had gained possession of the rebel 
line in his front. The Sixth Corps had simultaneously begun their work. 
Wheaton on the right, Seymour in the centre, and Getty on the left, 
joining at Fort Sampson the new line of the Twenty-fourth Corps, with 
Foster’s Division on the right. Wright’s Corps had to sustain a volley 
in their advance, but they carried the rebel line, and not five minutes 
elapsed from the time Wright gave the signal to storm, before Gens. 
Seymour, Wheaton, and Getty were over the line and in possession of 
all the rebel guns. All the regiments did their duty. In the first charge 
Wheaton took twelve pieces of artillery, and nearly the entire Mississippi 
Brigade of Heth’s Division ; thus, by five o’clock, the rebels were driven 
from all their outer works on the south and west of Petersburg. At 
seven o’clock, the Second and Twenty-fourth Corps began the work as¬ 
signed them. Turner and Foster, of the Twenty-fourth Corps, made the 
assault and carried the rifle lines with little loss, while the Second Corps 
advanced immediately on the opposite side of Hatcher’s Run. The ad¬ 
vance of these corps was a gradual ascent all the way. Colonel Olmstead 
and Colonel Mclvor, of the first and second brigades, rushed into the 
two forts before them, capturing five guns and a large number of pris¬ 
oners, with the loss of only ten men. The Nineteenth Massachusetts 
and the Seventh Michigan, the far East and far West, join hands this 
Sunday morning in the last ditch” of the rebellion. Other forts were 
taken by New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey troops. Thus by 
eight o’clock the entire rebel line, from the Appomattox to Burgess’ Mill, 
had everywhere been broken, and the Sixth Corps had swung round 
and was facing Petersburg from the west. The Twenty-fourth Corps 
was marching from Hatcher’s Run east inside the rebel line, and the Sec¬ 
ond Corps in the same direction on the Boydton Road. Every soldier 
looked as if he understood the mighty events taking place. The smile of 
triumph w*as on every lip, the sparkle of joy in every eye. 

General Grant having left his headquarters at Dabney Mills to over¬ 
look the work yet to be done, came riding along the lines on a trot, cheer 
upon cheer everywhere saluted him, and nothing ever equaled the 


292 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


enthusiasm. The military genius of Napoleon, in his Italian campaigns, 
was now growing dim. Few things in the annals of war can compete 
with the manifestations of military genius that were this day taking place. 

The three outer lines of fortifications, which consisted of isolated forts, 
had all been carried ; but the fourth, and last, was one of great strength, 
and looked frowningly down from the slight range of hills upon which it 
was located. At nine o’clock, Wheaton still on the right, Seymour having 
swung to the left, tearing up the South Side railroad, Getty in the cen¬ 
tre, each hour was eclipsing the other in scenes of indescribable gran¬ 
deur. The corps were all forming in short range of the rebel works as 
leisurely as if on dress parade. The Sixth Corps advanced at double- 
quick, never stopping to fire, with a wild yell of delight, over they 
went, turning the heavy guns and sending the iron hail after the flying 
foe. Victory was now traveling with the Second Corps, for Miles, Mott, 
Smyth and Humphrey were there. The Sixth Corps was also at work. A 
large number of houses were now in flames, the columns of smoke rising 
from them in heavy clouds, shrouding the scenes for the moment, but soon 
lifted by the wind, with it floated off to the northeast. 

Grant had now laid out a programme. Meade, Wright, and Gibbons’ 
commands were appointed to execute it. The forts selected, at the 
sound of the bugle, were soon taken, the rebels making but a feeble re¬ 
sistance. The star spangled banner could now be seen floating above 
nearly all the heretofore strong rebel works. The Union army began to 
be assured of the magnitude of its triumphs ; deeds of daring, and hero¬ 
ism, were everywhere being displayed ; to mention the names of some 
would be doing injustice to all—it was an army of heroes. 

The Second and Fifth Corps were sent to a point to intercept the antici¬ 
pated retreat of Lee ; this somewhat weakened our force and the rebels 
made a more vigorous stand against the Ninth Corps. Lee was there 
superintending, and for a time advantage seemed on the rebel side. Our 
line stood firm, fighting like heroes, and finally, after superhuman effort, 
the rebels were driven back. We lost one fort. Reinforcements of 5000 
men had been ordered from City Point to supply, as far as possible, the 
deficiency created by the withdrawal of the Second and Fifth Corps, which 
had been sent to a point to cut off Lee’s retreat. At 11 o’clock Meade, 
Wright, and Gibbon were still at work. The Sixth Corps was now 
shifting to the right in plain view and easy range of Lee’s interior line. 
At this hour all was still, not a gun or a shout was heard, not a horse 
neighed, not a drum or bugle sounded ; the field was still as death. 

Suddenly a gun on one of the rebel forts to the left belched forth a 
dull report, then another and another ; the rebel chief struggling like a 
child in the hand of a giant. At twelve o’clock it was discovered that 
Lee was retreating across the Appomattox on three separate pontoons. 


THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 


293 


Just above the city huge fires were already raging in the town ; the reb¬ 
els had applied the torch to accelerate their own ruin. At two o’clock, 
the Sixth and Twenty-fourth Corps, at the sound of the bugle, commenced 
to assault some of the remaining forts still making a show of resistance 
in that part of the field. They were soon carried, and the starry flag 
hoisted over them ; at the same time the rebel fort that had been taken 
from us was again recaptured. Gen. Collins, from City Point, headed the 
charge ; the rebels poured in a terrible fire, but after a severe struggle 
the fort was captured, and at half past three o’clock the “ last ditch” of 
the rebellion was reached. Our prisoners were now like the sands on 
the sea shore, and the marines and sailors from Porter’s fleet were 
brought to guard them. 

The rebel rams, Virginia and Rappahannock, which were lying on the 
James, some distance from Howlett House, were blown up about mid¬ 
night on the second, shaking the earth like a volcano. The grandest 
scenes of history were now taking place on the works around Rich¬ 
mond. The rebels were engaged in making a great show through the 
day, and all their engineering was brought into play to continue the de¬ 
ception up to twelve o’clock at night. Gen. Weitzel suspected the ob¬ 
ject of the grand display, and when he saw the lurid light hanging over 
the rebel Capital it told him that the hour had almost come. t 

Gen. Weitzel immediately started, and entered Richmond at 8:15, on the 
morning of the 3d of April, 1865, Thus the great Capital of treason and 
rebellion, which had defied the Union army for four years, fell. Rich¬ 
mond and Petersburg were now captured, hundreds of guns and thous¬ 
ands of prisoners taken, Lee’s army demoralized, shattered, broken, and 
driven to the four winds. This is the history of the day. How can it 
be told ? what pen can write it ? or who comprehend the magnitude of 
the issues decided by this mighty event ? Two hundred and forty-five 
years ago, on this very spot, our traffic in human flesh began. During 
this long period the earnest prayers and agonizing groans of an outraged 
people had been ascending to the throne of God. They have not been 
in vain. Let it forever be rembered that Washington gave us a country, 
but this day’s victory made it free. 

Gen. Grant, having defeated Lee in the great battle of the 2d, was de¬ 
termined that he should not have an opportunity again to recruit his 
shattered army. Lee’s retreat exhibited every sign of a rout, the path 
strewn with wagons, ambulances, dead and wounded horses and mules, 
caissons, boxes of ammunition thrown out to lighten the load, mess uten¬ 
sils, arms, accoutrements, blankets, clothing, loose cartridges, and simi¬ 
lar wrecks. Lee crossed the Mamozine Creek, destroying the bridge, 
then on to Mamozine Church, then across the Appomattox on to Amelia 
Court House, forty-seven miles southwest of Richmond. Gen. Grant was 


294 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


with Gen. Orel’s column of the army of the James. On the night of the 
5th the Union army lay in line of battle, stretching across three or four 
miles of country. The engagements that took place at Jettersville 
and Deatonsville, and Sheridan’s cavalry now at Plainville intercepting 
him on his way to Lynchburg, left nothing for Lee but surrender. 
Grant, on the *7th, sent him a communication that further resistance would 
only be a waste of human life to no purpose, and requested him to save 
the further useless effusion of blood by a timely surrender. 

THE TERMS AND SURRENDER. 

Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865. 

General R. E. Lee, Commanding C. S. A.: 

In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the eighth in¬ 
stant. I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Vir¬ 
ginia, on the following terms, to wit: 

Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy 
to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by 
such officers as you may designate. 

The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against 
the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regi¬ 
mental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. 

The arms, artillery and public property to be packed and stacked, and 
turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will 
not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or 
baggage. 

This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their 
homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they 
observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside. 

Very respectfully, 

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General. 

surrender. 

Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia, April 9, 1865. 
Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant, Commanding U. S. A. 

General : I have received your letter of this date, containing the 
terms of surrender of the army of Northern Virginia, as proposed by you ; 
as they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of 
the eighth instant, they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the 
proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

R. E. Lee, General . 


SURRENDER OF LEE. 


295 


lee’s entire loss. 

In the battles around Petersburg and in the pursuit, Lee lost over ten 
thousand men killed and wounded, and twenty thousand men in prisoners 
and deserters, including those taken in battle, and those picked up in 
pursuit; embracing all arms of the service—teamsters, hospital force, and 
everything—from sixteen to eighteen thousand men were surrendered by 
Lee. As only fifteen thousand muskets and about thirty pieces of artil¬ 
lery were surrendered, the available fighting force could hardly have 
exceeded fifteen or twenty thousand men. Our total captures of artillery 
during the battles and pursuit, and at the surrender, amounted to 
about one hundred and seventy guns. Three or four hundred wagons 
were handed over. 

In the terms of surrender, the officers gave their own paroles, and 
each officer gave his parole for the men within his command. The fol¬ 
lowing is the form of the personal parole of officers, copied from the orig¬ 
inal document given by Lee and a portion of his staff: 

“ We, the undersigned prisoners of war belonging to the army of 
Northern Virginia, having been this day surrendered by General R. E. 
Lee, commanding said army, to Lieutenant-General Grant, commanding 
the armies of the United States, do hereby give our solemn parole of 
honor that we will not hereafter serve in the armies of the Confederate 
States, or in any military capacity whatever, against the United States of 
America, or render aid to the enemies of the latter until properly ex¬ 
changed in such manner as shall be mutually approved by the respective 
authorities. 

“ R. E. Lee, General. 

11 W. H. Taylor, Lieutenant-Colonel and A. A. G. ’ 

“ Chas. S. Venable, Lieutenant-Colonel and A. A. G. 

“ Chas. Marshall, Lieutenant-Colonel and A. A. G. 

“ H. E. Praton, Lieutenant-Colonel and Ins.-General. 

“ Giles Brooke, Major and A. A. Surgeon-General. 

“ II. S. Young, A. A. General. 

*• Done at Appomattox Court House, Va.,this ninth (9th) day of April, 
1865.” 

The parole is the same given by all officers, and is countersigned as 
follows: 

“ The above-named officers will not be disturbed by United States au¬ 
thorities as long as they observe their parole, and the laws in force where 
they reside. 

“ Geore H. Sharpe, General Assist. Provost-Marshal." 


296 


LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT. 


The obligation of officers for the subdivisions under their command is 
in form as follows : 

“ I, the undersigned, commanding officer of-, do, for the within- 

named prisoners of war, belonging to the army of Northern Virginia, 
who have been this day surrendered by General Robert E. Lee, Confed¬ 
erate States Army, commanding said army, to Lieutenant-General Grant, 
commanding the armies of the United States, hereby give my solemn pa¬ 
role of honor that the within-named shall not hereafter serve in the 
armies of the Confederate States of America, or in military or any ca¬ 
pacity whatever against the United States of America, or render aid to 
the enemies of the latter, until properly exchanged in such manner as 
shall be mutually approved by the respective authorities. 

“The within-named will not be disturbed by the United States authori¬ 
ties so long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they 
may reside.” 

The surrender of Lee was followed by the voluntary surrender of most 
of the regular troops of the enemy in the Shenandoah. 

THE REBEL FORCES IN ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI, AND EAST LOUISIANA, SURRENDER 

TO GENERAL CANBY. 

On the 4th of May, 1865, General Richard Taylor, commanding the 
rebel forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, surrendered to 
Major-General Canby, and this closed up our account with the rebels east 
of the Mississippi river. 

GENERAL SHERIDAN GOES TO NEW ORLEANS.—SURRENDER OF KIRBY SMITH. 

Beyond the Mississippi, Kirby Smith showed a determination to hold 
out and prolong the war. General Grant resolved to use efficient meas¬ 
ures to bring him also to terms, and a powerful expedition was fitted out 
at Fortress Monroe, and Major-General Philip Sheridan was assigned 
to its command. The General proceeded forthwith by way of the 
Mississippi river to New Orleans before reaching that point, Smith had 
heard of the surrender of Lee, Johnston, and Taylor, and he too accepted 
the terms granted to Lee, and surrendered the forces under his command. 

Thus all the armies of the rebellion were captured, conquered and 
subdued, and the arch traitor Davis captured while endeavoring to 
escape. All honor to General Grant, the galant officers and brave men 
under his command ; they have fought the good fight, and their victory 
is won. 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


HIS ANCESTORS, HIS BIRTH, HIS LIFE, AND 
ASSASSINATION. 


The ancestors of Abraham Lincoln, like those of General Sherman, 
came from England. Many of the Israelites think his name Abraham 
peculiarly significant of a distant Jewish origin, while our friends, the 
Quakers, claim they have strong evidence that they emigrated to this 
country with the founder of Pennsylvania and entertained a similar reli¬ 
gious belief. Raymond, in his Life of Lincoln remarks, “ It is difficult 
to trace them farther back than to their place of residence in Berks coun¬ 
ty, Pennsylvania. As the territory had previously been settled only by 
the Swedes and Finns, there is a strong probability that Lincoln’s ances¬ 
tors came to this country with the colony of Friends sent out by William 
Penn at the close of the year 1681. This we know to be tradition and 
have no doubt of its truth. In 1750 a part of the family (it had then 
been living and multiplying in that region for near seventy years) re¬ 
moved to what is now known as Rockingham County, Virginia, where old 
Abraham Lincoln was born. We have been unable to learn his father’s 
name. Abraham here married a Virginia woman. About three years after 
they were married, and when their son, Thomas Lincoln, was two years 
old, they concluded to change their location and go a little further west. 
Thus in 1780, the grandfather of our late President left Virginia, and 
with his family settled on Floyd’s Creek, in the region now known as 
Bullitt County, Kentucky. Erecting a log cabin to protect his little 
family from the wet and cold, he soon began to gather around him the 
rude and indispensable necessities of frontier life. He was perfectly 
satisfied and his wife contented in this their new and distant home. But 
in 1784 he was engaged in clearing a piece of land about four miles dis¬ 
tant from his house, procuring subsistence for his family, consisting now 
of his wife and five children, three sons and two daughters. 

While thus engaged in honest toil the strife with the Indians began, 
and he was destined to be a victim. He was murdered by an Indian 
while at work in the clearing above mentioned, and his scalped remains 



298 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


found the next morning near where he had been working. His widow 
was low left with a large family in a lonely wilderness and with but 
scanty means to support them. Poverty soon made it necessary that the 
little group should part. All except the second son, found homes in 
other sections of Kentucky; he secured a place in Indiana. Thomas, 
who was the oldest, being a little over six years, remained with his 
mother until he was twelve ; he then left for a short time, but soon after¬ 
wards returned and continued to live with and support her until he was 
twenty-eight years of age. This carries us to the year 1806, when 
Thomas Lincoln concluded to take to himself a wife. Like his father, he 
chose a Virginia woman for a companion. He was married to Miss Nancy 
Hanks in the latter part of the winter of 1806, and their first child was 
born (a girl) in the month of March, 1807. They were a plain, and un¬ 
assuming couple. He had received no education, and she could read but 
could not write. They were persons of strong natural abilities, exem¬ 
plary in their private life, both being members of the Baptist Church. 
Soon after they were married they removed and settled near Elizabeth¬ 
town, Hardin county, Kentucky, and there, February 12th, 1809, Abraham 
Lincoln, the illustrious personage and subject of this narrative was born. 
Two years afterwards another son was born, but he died in infancy. 
The daughter, the oldest of the family lived to years of womanhood, 
married, but subsequently died without issue. This, we believe, is all 
that is yet authentically known about the ancestors of this illustrious man. 
The Hon. Robert Dale Owen, we understand, is engaged in getting to¬ 
gether a very complete and elaborate history of Mr. Lincoln. Perhaps 
he may be able to throw some light on the period between 1681 and 
1750. 

We ourselves shall wait with great anxiety to receive what new light 
his extensive research and eloquent pen can give on this important and in¬ 
teresting subject. At seven years old, “ Little Abe” (as he was famil¬ 
iarly called) was sent to school. His father determined as far as possi¬ 
ble to give him an education. A Mr. Hazel who kept a school, and Zach- 
ariah Riney, a Roman Catholic, were the persons that first gave him the 
rudiments of instruction. Riney was some way connected with a Catholic 
Institute that the Trappists had founded on Pottinger’s Creek. Be¬ 
coming annoyed at the obstructions slavery was placing in the way of 
industry and enterprise, Thomas Lincoln concluded to leave Kentucky, 
and settle in free territory. Thus, in 1817, he traded his home in Hardin 
county for about three hundred dollars worth of merchandize, and built a 
flat-boat on the Rolling Fork Paver, placed all his earthly valuables on 
board, including his family, and floated out into the Ohio and made for 
Thompson’s Ferry, opposite Spencer county, Indiana, the county and re¬ 
gion he had previously selected for his new and future home. He had 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


299 


with him three horses and one cow, and it took him seven days to get 
their scanty household goods eighteen miles back from the river bank, 
having to cut his way through the woods, some days only advancing 
three miles. When they arrived at the spot, with the kind assistance of 
a few neighbors, Thomas Lincoln soon erected a nice log house eighteen 
feet square, with some slabs laid across the logs overhead, forming an up¬ 
stairs which was got to by a rough ladder in the corner. The loft was 
Abe’s bedroom and there for years he contentedly slept with one coarse 
blanket for his mattress and another for his covering. What a future 
was before this innocent youth as he sweetly slept in his rude but happy 
home. If he had been told he could not have comprehended it, and the 
unbelieving would not have believed it. Dressed in a suit of buckskin 
and a cap made from a raccoon skin he, became the favorite with the set¬ 
tlers, and his parents were devotedly fond of him. He had now T when 
nine years old become remarkably fond of books, reading a few chapters 
in the Bible daily for the edification of his mother, but she could not 
have imagined in her wildest dreams the future eminence of her beloved 
son. But while engaged in moulding the future character of her little 
boy, the faithful mother died. This sad bereavement occurred when 
Abe was about ten years old. Ministers of the gospel were seldom to 
be met in this wild region, and it was not until twelve months after her 
death that Parson Elkins was induced by a kind and touching letter from 
her little son to come and preach her funeral sermon. In his sermon 
the Parson frequently alluded to the touching eloquence of the letter he 
received, which afterwards served to bring Abraham’s pen into frequent 
employment in writing letters for the neighbors. Two years after Mrs. 
Lincoln’s death, Mr. Lincoln married Mrs. Sally Johnston, a widow with 
three children, who resided at Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Fortunately 
she was admirably adapted to fill the vacancy in Mr. Lincoln’s family, 
and a superior woman between whom and Abe a most devoted attach¬ 
ment sprung up, and continued during the twelve years that Thomas 
Lincoln resided in Indiana. He continued to send Abraham to school. 
A Mr. Dorsey, who a few months ago, was still living in Schuyler Coun¬ 
ty, Illinois, and a Mr. Crawford were the teachers. Ramsay and Weem’s 
Life of Washington were among the first, then came Life of Henry Clay, 
iEsop’s Fables, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress ; all these he eagerly 
perused, and we have no doubt the latter work served to perfect him in 
a great measure, in that style which was in after years so peculiar to his 
pen. After he left school, until he was eighteenyears old, he labored in the 
woods cutting down trees, clearing the ground, and splitting rails. 
Abraham had now lived to be nineteen years old. A New Orleans trader 
resided near by, and his son in the spring of 1828 was about to make a 
trip on a flatboat with a valuable cargo down the Mississippi to the Cres- 


300 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


cent City. Abraham hired for the trip at ten dollars a month. On their 
way down, a band of robbers, great numbers of whom infested that 
stream in those early times, attempted to seize the boat with all its valu¬ 
able cargo, but after a spirited contest with the boat’s crew, were re¬ 
pulsed and driven back. The Trader and Abraham returned from their 
trip to New Orleans in the summer. His father, Thomas Lincoln, had 
inherited that peculiar distaste that all frontiersmen have against the ad¬ 
vancing tide of civilization, and he concluded to seek a new home ; with 
him, like all other backwoodsmen, 

The heaven of eternal earthly rest, 

Is always found a little further west. 

In March, 1830, Thomas Lincoln moved his family to Illinois. After 
fifteen days travel with oxen, (Abraham driving one team) he came to 
a site of (ten acres) on the north side of the Sangamon river, ten miles 
west of Decatur, Macon county. The father and Abraham soon erected 
a log cabin, and the latter split sufficient rails to fence their new farm. 
The father soon became tired of his home in Macon county, and resolved 
to move to Coles county, about seventy miles distant away. Abraham 
objected to his father again moving, and in the spring signified his in¬ 
tention of leaving home and seeking his fortune among strangers. The 
tidings were received by his parents and friends with the most profound 
sorrow. But he went westward to Menard county and worked on a farm 
for Mr. Armstrong in the vicinity of Petersburg, during the ensuing 
summer and winter. This prevented his father from moving to Coles 
county and he settled down on the upper waters of the Kaskaskia and 
Embarras, w r here he died in his seventy-third year, January 17th, 1851. 

In 1831, Abraham again made atrip to New Orleans in the capacity of a 
flatboatman, returning that summer. His employer was so pleased with 
him he gave him a clerkship in his mill and store at New Salem, about 
twenty miles from Springfield. He was a most dutiful son, devoting the 
principal part of his earnings to keep his father’s family, who were then 
very poor. In 1832, Black Hawk was concentrating a large Indian force 
on the Illinois river. Major Stillman, with his famous two hundred and 
seventy men, had previously been defeated by him, on the 14tli of 
May at Sangamon Creek, Black Hawk at the time having only forty 
warriors engaged in the fight. The Governor of Illinois was now calling 
for troops to punish the Indians, and a recruiting office being opened at 
New Salem, Abraham Lincoln was the first to put down his name. The 
company was soon organized, and the men unanimously chose him for 
their captain. They marched to Beardstown, and from there to the seat 
of war. The term of enlistment being out, without hesitation he re-enlisted 
in another company as a private, where he continued until its term of 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


301 


enlistment had also expired. Like most Kentuckians he was an admirer 
and supporter of Henry Clay, and after his return from the war was cho¬ 
sen by the Whig party, in New Salem, as a candidate for the legislature 
of Illinois. He was defeated ; but out of the 284 votes cast in the town 
of New Salem, he received 177. This was the first and last time he was 
ever beaten before the people. This contest over (although not elected, 
his opponent only led him a few votes) he purchased a store and stock 
of goods on credit, and was appointed Postmaster at New Salem ; but 
store-keeping was to him unprofitable, and he sold out, and for a year 
was engaged in surveying. John Calhoun, afterwards president of the 
former Lecompton Constitutional Convention of Kansas, being his tutor, 
he still continued to act as postmaster of the town. Reverses came upon 
him, and his surveying implements were seized for debt arid sold by the 
sheriff of the county. In 1834 he was again nominated for the legislature 
and was elected by a very large majority. In 1836,1838, and 1840, was 
re-elected to the same office. During his first term in the legislature he 
conceived the idea of studying law, and through the aid of Hon. John 
T. Stuart, who placed in his possession the necessary books ; and he was 
admitted to the bar in 1836 ; and on April 15th, 1837, he settled perma¬ 
nently in Springfield, Sangamon county, where he entered into partner¬ 
ship with John T. Stuart. Many thrilling incidents occurred with him 
during his legal profession. The Mr. Armstrong whom he had worked 
for in Menard county, after he first lefc his father’s house, had died, and 
his oldest son had been arrested for murder and was confined in the jail 
of that county awaiting trial. As soon as Mr. Lincoln heard of this 
sad occurrence, he sent a letter to Mrs. Armstrong, offering to return 
her kindness to him during the time he lived in her family, by volun¬ 
teering his services gratuitously for her son’s defence. They were glad¬ 
ly accepted, and by a discrepancy in the testimony of the main witness 
against the boy, who swore that the deed was committed at precisely 
half past nine o’clock, and that he saw it plain, for the moon was shining 
clearly. Mr. Lincoln showed, after reviewing all the other evidence, 
that the moon did not rise until an hour later than the time stated by the 
witness, therefore the whole testimony was a base fabrication ; the jury 
so viewed it, and returned a verdict of not guilty. At this moment the 
widow dropped into the arms of her son who lifted her up, and told her 
to look on him as before, free and innocent. Then with the words, 
" Where is Mr. Lincoln?” he rushed across the room and grasped him 
by the hand, while his heart was too full for utterance. Lincoln turned 
his eyes to the west where the sun still lingered in view, and then, turn, 
ing to the youth, said, “ It is not yet sundown and you are free.” Mr. 
Lincoln loved his fellowmen with all the strength of his good nature, and 
his voice touching, and always cheerful made his presence a source of 
joy to the company. 


302 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


In March, 1837, on account of a series of resolutions being offered by 
some one sustaining the ultra southern view of slavery in the Illinois 
Legislature, Mr. Lincoln offered a protest against slavery, signed by 
Daniel Stone and himself, Representatives of Sangamon county, Illinois. 
For many years Mr. Lincoln lived a bachelor in the family of lion. Wil¬ 
liam Butler in Springfield. On November 4th, 1842, he married Miss Mary 
Todd, daughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd of Lexington, Kentucky. In 
every campaign from 1836 to 1852, Mr. Lincoln was a Whig candidate for 
Presidential Elector, and in 1844 stumped the state of Illinois for Henry 
Clay. In 1846, he was elected to Congress from the central district of 
Illinois. That state sent seven representatives that year, and all were 
Democrats except Mr. Lincoln. On the question of the Mexican War he 
never could be induced to give his vote in Congress that the war had 
been righteously begun, but he voted for every act brought forward to 
procure money to pay, or give land warrants to the soldiers. His votes 
in Congress were uniformly given against the institution of slavery, and 
he voted more than forty different times in favor of the Wilmot Proviso. 
In 1849 Mr. Lincoln was a candidate before the Legislature of Illinois 
for U. S. Senator ; but his political opponents being in the majority, Gen¬ 
eral Shields was chosen. He was subsequently offered the nomination 
for Governor of Illinois, but declined it in favor of Mr. Bissell. In June, 
1858, the Republican Convention assembled at Springfield, and nomin¬ 
ated him as their candidate for the United States Senate. 

The contest that followed was the most remarkable ever witnessed in 
the country. Mr. Douglas, his opponent, had few, if any, superiors as 
a political debater. From county to county they both traveled, often in 
the same car, and face to face. These great champions argued the im¬ 
portant points before thousands of their fellow citizens. 

During the campaign, Mr. Lincoln paid the following tribute to the Dec¬ 
laration of Independence: 

“ These communities, (the thirteen colonies,) by their representatives 
in old Independence Hall, said to the world of men, ‘ We hold these 
truths to be self-evident, that all men are born equal; that they are en¬ 
dowed by their Creator with inalienable rights ; that among these are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ This was their majestic in¬ 
terpretation of the economy of the universe. This was their lofty, and 
wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to his crea¬ 
tures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of 
man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine im¬ 
age and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, 
and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the race of men 
then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the furthest pos¬ 
terity. They created a beacon to guide their children and their chil- 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


303 


dren’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth 
in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of 
prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evi¬ 
dent truths that when, in the distant future, some man, some faction, 
some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none 
but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again 
to the Declaration of Independence, and take courage to renew the battle 
which their fathers began, so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all 
the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the 
land ; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the 
great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built. 

“ Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting 
with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence ; if you have 
listened to suggestions -which would take away from its grandeur, and 
mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions ; if you have been inclined 
to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights 
enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back— 
return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Rev¬ 
olution. Think nothing of me, take no thought for the political fate of 
any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the Decla¬ 
ration of Independence. 

“ You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these 
sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you 
may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to 
earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something 
higher than an anxiety for office.. I charge you to drop every paltry and 
insignificant thought for any man’s success. It is nothing ; I am nothing ; 
Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of 
humanity—the Declaration of American Independence.” 

The result of this animated campaign was a vote of 126,084 for the Re¬ 
publican candidates, 121,940 for the Douglas Democrats, and 5,091 for 
Lecompton candidates, but Mr. Douglas was elected United States Sena¬ 
tor by the Legislature in which his supporters had a majority of eight on 
joint ballot. But Mr. Lincoln’s friends were no way disheartened, and 
determined to make him their next Presidential candidate ; and at the 
Republican Convention, held at Chicago, in May, 1860, Abraham Lincoln 
for President, and Hannibal Hamlin for Vice President, became the nom¬ 
inees ; suffice it to say, this ticket was elected. The trials and troubles 
of his first term we have given in another part of this book. 

You can not fail to have noticed the solemn and sometimes almost 
mournful strain that pervades many of his addresses. When he left 


304 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


Springfield in 1861 to assume the Presidency, his farewell words were as 
follows : 

“ My Friends No one not in my position can appreciate the sad¬ 
ness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I 
have lived more than a quarter of a century; here my children were 
born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall 
see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater 
than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of 
Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Di¬ 
vine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I can not 
succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the 
same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, 
rqy friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, with¬ 
out which I can not succeed, but with which success is certain. Again, 
I bid you all an affectionate farewell.” 

He was re-nominated by the same party June 7th, at Baltimore, Mary¬ 
land, for a second term, with Andrew Johnson for Vice President. A 
complete account of the campaign of 1864, and Mr. Lincoln’s triumphant 
re-election, can be found in another part of this book. 

ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

Sadly and sorrowfully do we commence this melancholy story. We 
had published a full and complete account of the Assassination of Presi¬ 
dents Harrison and Taylor, with facts about the National Hotel poison¬ 
ing, wherein the South endeavored to get rid of Buchanan so as to have 
Breckenridge for President, and we warned Mr. Lincoln personally be¬ 
fore his reelection by placing the first 128 pages of this book in his 
hands ; but his patriotic devotion to his country led him to disregard all 
intimations of personal danger. The exalted and holy purpose of de¬ 
stroying slavery, and preventing his country’s ruin were everywhere 
uppermost in his mind ; above all barbarity himself, it was not easy to 
convince him of its existence in others. But while we kept sounding the 
alarm like a fire-bell in the night, fawning sycophants who sought him 
only for place, refused to aid us; but rather threw cold water on all 
the incontrovertible facts we produced or warnings we gave. 

The press of the whole country with the exception of the New York 
Evening Post, The Independent, The Brooklyn Union, and a few others re¬ 
fused even to say one word about the Assassination of Presidents Harri¬ 
son and Taylor. In fact, the nation was lulled into fancied security by 
those holding the positions of sentinels on guard. The democratic lead¬ 
ers did not care to have it known, that slavery had murdered both, and 
the only Presidents the opositionhad placed in power. The other party 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN - . 


305 


leaders believed it all, but thought it policy to hold it back ; deeming it 
inexpedient to give to the world an account of these monstrous political 
crimes. Some of the ministers of the gospel barely hinted that the 
deaths of Harrison arid Taylor were mysterious ; but it was not until after 
President Lincoln’s Assassination that any one of them came forward 
and boldly announced it to be an established fact. Reverend Henry 
Ward Beecher in an article written for The New York Ledger of the 20th 
of May 1865, says : 

“ There is, also, the gravest reasons to believe that all moral restrictions 
were yielded, and that crimes the most infamous were deliberately em¬ 
ployed as the means of promoting the bad ends of these conspirators. 
Those who know most of the interior of affairs, scarcely doubt that Harri¬ 
son was poisoned that Tyler might fulfill Southern plans of war with 
Mexico. With even stronger conviction is it affirmed that Taylor was 
poisoned, that a less stern successor might give a suppler instrument to 
Southern managers. Who doubts, now, that it was attempted to poison 
Buchanan at the National Hotel, and leave Breckenridge in his room ? It 
is a matter of verified history that efforts were made to take off Mr. Lin¬ 
coln before he should be inaugurated. And now, the whole world is 
astounded by the hideous crime by which he has been removed from 
life. 

‘ ‘ This perspective is needed to reveal the characters of the chief men 
in this superlative infamy of secession. We do not believe that the 
Southern people were privy to such crimes, or that all who became con¬ 
spicuous in the Southern councils and armies knew of such things, but 
that the real leaders were men steeped in crime, and capable of the ut¬ 
most infamy, we have not a doubt.” 

Professor Robert Grant of Baltimore, Md., in his able and interesting 
letter written to the author prior to the Assassination of President Lin¬ 
coln, and before his reelection, should be carefully read by every one. 
Then let him or her turn to the 120th page of the book commencing at 
the bottom, and they can see the country directed to the very spot where 
the scheme was being planned , and that was over six months before the 
plans were put into execution . We do not attain to the spirit or power 
of prophesy ; but we do believe we gave information which, if it had been 
properly heeded at the time, might have prevented the foul murder of 
President Lincoln. But fate had otherwise decreed, and all that is now 
left for us to do is to give a faithful and truthful history of the foul 
crime. 

After the battle of Gettysburg was fought, the leaders of the rebel¬ 
lion for the first time discovered that all their previous calculations 
concerning the eastern troops were erroneous ; they then saw that the 
army of the Potomac, when properly handled, was more than a match for 

20 


306 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


any similar number of troops they could bring into the field. They had 
not calculated on such bravery as was exhibited on McPherson’s Heights, 
and all over the battle ground. They now for the first time, contrary 
to their preconceived opinions, discovered that Americans are Ameri¬ 
cans, whether born on the Penobscot, the Hudson, the Susquehanna, the 
Rio Grand, the Mississippi, or the James. All hope of gaining indepen¬ 
dence by the valor of their arms was now gone. It was then determined 
at Richmond to assist the peace faction in the Free States to gain the 
presidential election coming on in the fall. But this move could not be 
expected to succeed without they had a war man to head the ticket. The 
plan was that a true and tried friend should occupy the second position, 
and by the popularity of the first, both were to be put into power. 
This accomplished, the next thing was to get rid of McClellan. He might 
quietly be sliped aside by poison, or if need be, publicly assassinated ; 
by this means they intended to get hold of the purse strings and sword 
of the Government. The right to secede would then be reassured, and 
by that means they would achieve their independence. But the first 
plan did not succeed; yet over one million of dollars was taken from the 
rebel secret service fund and spent by the Richmond government in this 
enterprise. Lincoln being reellected, new tactics had to be resorted to. 
Their first plan had not succeeded, but they had another yet back as a 
substitute, and that was to capture if possible, and if that could not be 
done, then to assassinate the Chief Magistrate, Vice President, the best 
generals, and leading cabinet officers. It was thought that such an 
appalling catastrophe would be caclulated to intimidate the country to 
such a degree, those coming into place would readily consent to, and 
acknowledge their independence. Immediately after the result of the 
Presidential Election of 1864 was known (their first plot having failed), 
the following advertisement appeared, first in the Dispatch , published at 
Salem Alabama, and afterwards in about all the rebel press of the South : 

“ December 1, 1864. 

“ One Million Dollars wanted, to have Peace by the First of March. 
If the citizens of the Southern Confederacy will furnish me with the cash, 
or good securities, for the sum of One Million Dollars, I will cause the 
lives of Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, and Andrew Johnston, to 
be taken by the 1st of March next. This will give us peace, and satisfy 
the world that cruel tyrants can not live in a land of liberty. If this is 
not accomplished, nothing will be claimed beyond the sum of fifty thou¬ 
sand dollars, in advance, which is supposed to be necessary to reach and 
slaughter the three villains. 

11 1 will give, myself, one thousand dollars towards this patriotic 
purpose. 

“ Every one wishing to contribute will address Box X., Cahcfwba, Ala.” 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


307 


For to carry out liis hellish plot, which never had an equal, some skill¬ 
full bold and daring leader was required. He soon appeared. John W. 
Booth, a play actor by profession ; he was the idol of the play going 
people of all the Southern Cities, where most of his professional life had 
been spent. The leaders of the rebellion well knew his impulsive na¬ 
ture, they also knew he was a great admirer of “ Brutus the Aassassin 
of Caesar,” “ Charlotte Corday the Assassin of Marat,” “Joan of Arc” 
and that class of historical characters ; he was strongly in sympathy with 
the rebellion, and could rival Northern Copperhead newspapers or 
orators in vilifying President Lincoln. Booth was easily approached and 
they approached him. There is little doubt but Lewis Payne and John 
H. Surratt, also had access to, and conferred with either Jeff Davis in 
person, or his agents in Canada. Beverley Tucker, George N. Sanders, 
C. C. Clay, Jacob Thompson, W. N. Cleary, and others. 

Mary E. Surratt, mother of John H. Surratt, whose house was made 
the rendezvous of all the assassins, was also active and energetic. 
George A. Atzeroth and David E. Harold also went into the conspiracy 
with spirit; the former was to have assassinated Vice President John¬ 
son, and had taken a room directly over his at the Kirkwood House 
where the Vice President boarded. Booth, Payne, John H. Surratt, 
Atzeroth, and Harold, were expected to do the work; John H. Surratt 
was to have assassinated Lieutenant General Grant while at the theatre 
at the same time Booth did President Lincoln, but Grant’s absence pre¬ 
vented it. Booth performed his part; Payne who had been assigned to 
assassinate Secretary Seward, made a bold and murderous attempt, 
severely wounding him, also his two sons, in the desperate onslaught. 
From some yet unknown cause, Atzeroth and Harold did not succeed, 
although the necessary preparation all had been made. Booth wanted 
the latter to kill the Vice President, although it had been previously 
agreed that Atzeroth should do it, but Booth feared he lacked courage. 
Harold was to have taken the life of Secretary Stanton; but in his 
efforts to screw Atzeroth’s courage up to kill the Vice President he failed 
to be on time to meet the Secretary of War, he having gone to see 
Mr. Seward, and had only left his bedside about twenty minutes be¬ 
fore the assassin Payne made the murderous assault. Samuel Arnold, 
Michael O’Loughlin, and Samuel A. Mudd. The evidence against these 
persons was not sufficiently strong to cause their execution, yet they were 
enough implicated to induce the court to sentence them to a life long im¬ 
prisonment. Edward Spangler was sentenced for the term of six years. 
Immediately after the capture of Richmond and Lee’s army by General 
Grant, the conspiracy was brought to a head. Therefore the first oppor¬ 
tunity to put it into execution was to be embraced. The reader will re¬ 
member it was on the 14th of April, 1861, that the national flag was low- 


308 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


ered from the ramparts of Fort Sumter. On the 14th of April, just four 
years afterwards, the same banner, vindicated by a thousand bloody bat¬ 
tles, was again thrown to the breeze by the same hand, and over the same 
spot whence it disappeared in 1861. Richmond had been taken and Lee’s 
army captured. Johnston was within the firm grasp of Sherman, and the 
14th of April 1865 was a day of rejoicing throughout the nation. 

From East to West the flags were flying in honor of the great events. 
Monday night, April 17th, was designed as a night of illumination. But 
the foul assassins were urged to strike quick, or all would be lost. Mr. 
Lincoln was unusually cheerful at the prospect of returning peace ; he 
had agreed to visit Ford’s Theatre, and it was announced in the papers 
that he and General Grant would be at the theatre that evening. Mr. 
Lincoln in company with his lady, Miss Harris, daughter of Senator Harris 
of New York, and Major Rathburn of the U. S. A., reached the theatre 
about twenty minutes before nine o’clock P.M. On entering the box 
the audience (which was immense, on account of the announcement in 
the papers that he and General Grant would attend the theatre that 
night) rose to their feet cheering and waving handkerchiefs and hats 
tumultuously. Mr. Lincoln’s face was radiant with pleasure, indicating 
the gratitude that filled his heart, gracefully bowed in acknowledgement 
of the compliments that were being shown towards him. When a few 
minutes before ten o’clock in the evening, while the play, “ Our Ameri¬ 
can Cousin” was progressing, Booth and two of his hired assassins ap¬ 
peared in front of the theatre ; he had his horse secreted in an alley-way, 
and had made all things ready ; during the day he had the entrance to 
the box where the President was to sit so arranged it would be easy of 
access. It was about half past nine when Sergeant Joseph M. Dye (son 
of the author), Battery C. Pennsylvania Independent Artillery was stand¬ 
ing in front of the entrance, he and Sergeant Cooper of the same battery 
saw Booth come out of the passage and join in conversation with two 
other persons. The President’s carriage was standing near the curb¬ 
stone on the street; they observed an unusual excitement among them, 
and frequent references to the vehicle. At last, Booth went into the 
passage way that leads from the s age to the street. He soon re¬ 
turned, and one of them called out the time, after some conversa¬ 
tion, one stepped up the street, returning called out the time louder 
than before, “ten minutes past ten;” he that announced the time, 
now started up the street, and Booth went straight into the theatre ; 
in a few moments after, persons ran out of the theatre, and an¬ 
nounced the President was shot. Although nothing had taken place to 
cause the sergeant to know the business or intentions of the three men, 
yet his suspicions were aroused, but not sufficiently to warrant inter¬ 
ference, or ask for an explanation. Knowing Booth as an actor, it 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


309 


served to quiet, rather than to cause his excitability concerning their 
intentions. But perhaps he was the only man living, out side of those 
engaged in the plot, that came near discovering, before the deed was done, 
Booth’s intention to do it. But fate had otherwise decreed, and we 
must be content. 

Booth passed along the passage behind the spectators of the dress 
circle, showed a card to the President’s messenger, and stood for a few 
moments looking down upon the stage and orchestra below. He then 
entered the vestibule of the President’s box, closing the door behind 
him, fastening it by bracing a short plank against it from the wall so no 
one could open it from the outside, and drawing with his right hand 
a small silver mounted Derringer pistol from his inside coat pocket, held 
in his left hand a long double edged dagger. The President and all in 
the box were intent on looking at the play, Mr. Lincoln holding aside 
the curtain of the box with his left hand, leaning forward and looking 
with his head slightly turned towards the audience. Booth stepped into 
the inner door into the box directly behind the President, and holding 
his pistol just over the back of the chair in which he sat, shot him 
through the back of the head. The President’s head fell slightly for¬ 
ward, his eyes closed, but otherwise his attitude every way remained the 
same. 

The report of the pistol startled those seated in the box. Major Bath- 
burn turning his eyes from the stage saw through the smoke which filled 
the box a man standing between him and the President. He instantly 
sprang forward to seize him ; Booth wrested himself from his grasp, 
dropped the pistol, striking at Rathburn with his dagger, stabbing him 
in the left arm near the shoulder. Booth then rushed to the front of the 
box, shouted, Sic Semper Tyrannis , placed his hand on the railing in 
front of the box and leaped over it down upon the stage. While 
jumping the spur on his heel caught in the flag that draped the front, 
causing him to fall, but recovering himself, rose, facing the audience in 
a theatrical attitude, brandishing the dagger, shouted, The South is 
Avenged ; rushing across the stage he made for the passage that led to 
the stage door in the rear of the theatre. 

An actor, named Hawk, was the only person on the stage when he 
leaped upon it; seeing the dagger in Booth’s hand he ran for his life off 
the stage and up a flight of stairs. Booth now made for the door that 
opened into the passage where his horse was standing ; closing the door 
behind him, mounted his horse that he had previously brought there, 
which was being held in readiness for him by a boy, rode off and over 
the east branch of the Potomac, crossing the Anacosta Bridge, giving 
his real name to the guard who challenged him, rode off among the rebel 
sympathizers in Lower Maryland and they secreted him for a time until he 


310 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


was shot in a barn in being captured, he refusing to surrender. Harold 
was with him at the time, but surrendered and was taken prisoner. Thus 
the life of the illustrious Chief Magistrate was taken, and in order that 
the reader may have a full and complete account of all the facts in this 
terrible tragedy, and also to satisfy him of the complicity of leading 
rebels with the assassination of President Lincoln, we give the summing 
up of the facts and the evidence by John A. Bingham, special Judge Ad¬ 
vocate, although lengthy, the reader if he commences will finish. 

JUDGE-ADVOCATE BINGHAM’S GREAT PLEA. 

What is the evidence, direct and circumstantial ? That the accused, or either of 
them, together with John H. Surratt, John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson DaA'is, George 
N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. 
Clay, George Harper and George Young, did combine, confederate and conspire in 
aid of the existing rebellion, as charged, to kill and murder, within the military 
department of Washington, and within the fortified and intrenched lines thereof 
Abraham Lincoln, late, and at the time of the said combining, confederating and 
conspiring, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief 
of the army and navy thereof; Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United 
States; William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States, and Ulys¬ 
ses S. Grant, Lieutenant-General of the armies thereof, and then in command, 
under the direction of the President. 

The time, as said in the charge and specification, when this conspiracy was en¬ 
tered into, is immaterial, so that it appears by the evidence that the criminal com¬ 
bination and agreement were formed before the commission of the acts alleged. 
That Jefferson Davis, one of the conspirators named, was the acknowledged chief 
and leader of the existing rebellion against the government of the United States, and 
that Jacob Thompson, George N. Sanders, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, and 
others named in the specification, were his duly accredited and authorized agents 
to act in the interests of said rebellion, are facts established by the testimony in 
this case beyond all question. That Davis, as the leader of said rebellion, gave to 
those agents, then in Canada, commissions in blank, bearing the official signature 
of the war minister, James A. Seddon, to be by them filled up and delivered to 
such agents as they might employ to act in the interests of the rebellion within the 
United States, and intended to be a cover and protection for any crimes they 
might therein commit in the service of the rebellion, are also facts established 
here, and which no man can gainsay. Who doubts that Kennedy, whose confes¬ 
sion, made in view of immediate death as proved here, was commissioned by those 
accredited agents of Davis to burn the city of New York? that he was to have at¬ 
tempted it on the night of the Presidential election, and that he did, in combina¬ 
tion with his confederates, set fire to four hotels in the city of New York on the 
night of the 25th of November last? Who doubts that, in like manner in the in¬ 
terests of the rebellion and by the authority of Davis, these his agents also com¬ 
missioned Bennett H. Young to commit arson, robbery, and the murder of unarmed 
citizens in !5t. Albans, Vermont? Who doubts, upon the testimony shown, that 
Davis, by his agents, deliberately adopted the system of starvation for the murder 
of our captive soldiers in his hands, or that, as shown by the testimony, he sanc¬ 
tioned the burning ot hospitals and steamboats, the property of private persons, and 
paid therefor from his stolen treasure the sum of thirty-five thousand dollars in 
gold ? 

By the evidence of Joseph Hyams it is proved that Thompson—the agent of 
Jefferson Davis—paid him money for the service he rendered in the infamous and 
fiendish project of importing pestilence into our camps and cities to destroy the 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


311 


lives of citizens and soldiers alike, and into the house of the President, for the pur¬ 
pose of destroying his life. It may be said, and doubtless will be said, by the pen¬ 
sioned advocates of this rebellion, that Hyarns, being infamous is not to be believed. 
It is admitted that lie is infamous, as it must be conceded that any man is infa¬ 
mous who either participates in such a crime or attempts in any way to extenuate 
it. But it will be observed that Hyams is supported by the testimony of Mr. San¬ 
ford Conover, who heard Blackburn and the other rebel agents in Canada speak of 
this infernal project, and by the testimony of Mr. Wall, the well-known auctioneer 
of this city, whose character is unquestioned, that he received this importation of 
pestilence (of course without any knowledge of the purpose), and that Hyams con¬ 
signed the goods to him in the name of J. W. Harris—a fact in itself an acknow¬ 
ledgment of guilt; and that he received afterwards a letter from Harris, dated To¬ 
ronto, Canada West, December 1, 1861, wherein Harris stated that he had not 
been able to come to the States since his return to Canada, and asked for an ac¬ 
count of the sale He identities the Joseph Godfrey Hyams who testified in Court 
as the J. W. Harris who imported the pestilence. The very transaction shows 
that Hyams’ statement is truthful. He gives the names of the parties connected 
with this infamy (Clement C. Clay, Dr. Blackburn, Rev. Dr. Stuart Robinson, J. 
C. Holcomb—all refugees from the Confederacy in Canada), and states that he 
gave Thompson a receipt for the fifty dollars paid to him, and that he was by oc ¬ 
cupation a shoemaker; in none of which facts is there an attempt to discredit him. 
It is not probable that a man in his position in life would be able to buy five trunks 
of clothing, ship them all the way from Halifax to Washington, and then order 
them to be sold at auction, without regard to price, solely upon his own account. It 
is a matter of notoriety, that a part of his statement is verified by the results at 
Newborn, North Carolina, to which point, he says, a portion of the infected goods 
were shipped, through a sutler; the result of which was, that nearly two thousand 
citizens and soldiers died there about that time with the yellow fever. 

That the rebel chief, Jefferson Davis, sanctioned these crimes, committed and 
attempted, through the instrumentality of his accredited agents in Canada, Thomp¬ 
son, Clay, Tucker, Sanders, Cleary, &c., upon the persons and property of the 
people of the North, there is positive proof on your record. The letter brought 
from Richmond, and taken from the archives of his late pretended government 
there, dated February 11, 1865, and addressed to him by a late rebel senator from 
Texas, W. S. Oldham, contains the following significant words : “When Senator 
Johnson, of Missouri, and myself waited on you a few days since, in relation to the 
project of annoying and harrassing the enemy by means of burning their shipping, 
towns, &c, &c., there were several remarks made by you upon the subject, which I 
was not fully prepared to answer, but which, upon subsequent conference with par¬ 
ties proposing the enterprise, I find can not apply as objections to the scheme. 
First, the combustible materials consist of several preparations, and not one alone, 
anti can be used without exposing the party using them to the least danger of detec¬ 
tion whatever. ... . . . . , . . ... 

“Second, there is no necessity for sending persons in the military service into 
the enemy’s country, but the work may be done by agents. ... I have seen 
enough of the effects that can be produced to satisfy me that in most cases, without 
any danger to the parties engaged, and in others but very slight, we can, first, burn 
every vessel that leaves a foreign port for the United States; second, we can burn every 
transport that leaves the harbor of New York, or other Northern port, with supplies 
for the armies of the enemies in the South; third, burn every transport and gun¬ 
boat on the Mississippi river, as well as devastate the country of the enemy, and 
fill his people with terror and consternation. . . . For the purpose of satisfying 

your mind upon the subject, I respectfully but earnestly request that you will give 
an interview with General Harris, formerly a member of Congress from Missouri, 
who, I think, is able, from conclusive proofs, to convince you that what I have 
suggested is perfectly feasible and practicable.” 

No one can doubt, from the tenor of this letter, that the rebel Davis only wanted 
to be satisfied that this system of arson and murder could be carried on by his 


312 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


agents in the North successfully and without detection. With him it was not a 
crime to do these acts, but only a crime to be detected in them. But Davis, bv 
his endorsement on this letter, dated the 20th of February, 1865, bears witness to 
his own complicity and his own infamy in this proposed work of destruction and 
crime for the future, as well as to his complicity in what had before been attempted 
without complete success. Kennedy, with his confederates, had failed to burn the 
city of New York. “ The combustibles ” which Kennedy had employed were, it 
seems, defective. This was “a difficulty to be overcome.” Neither had he been 
able to consummate the dreadful work without subjecting himself to detection. 
This was another ‘‘ difficulty to be overcome.” Davis, on the 20th of February, 
1865, indorsed upon this letter these words: “ Secretary of State, at his conven¬ 
ience, see General Harris and learn what plan he has for overcoming the difficulties 
heretofore experienced. J. Z>.” 

This indorsement is unquestionably proved to be the handwriting of Jefferson 
Davis, and it bears witness on its face that the monstrous proposition met his ap¬ 
proval, and that he desired his rebel Secretary of State, Benjamin, to see General 
Harris, and learn how to overcome the difficulty heretofore experienced , to wit: the 
inefficiency of “ the combustible materials ” that had been employed, and the lia¬ 
bility of his agents to detection. After this, who will doubt that he had endeav¬ 
ored, by the hand of incendaries, to destroy by fire the property and lives of the 
people of the North, and thereby ‘‘fill them with terror and consternation that 
he knew his agents had been unsuccessful; that he knew his agents had been de¬ 
tected in their viiliany and punished for their crime; that he desired through a 
more perfect “chemical preparation,” by the science and skill of Professor McCul¬ 
loch, to accomplish successfully what had been unsuccessfully attempted ? 

The intercepted letter of his agent, Clement C. Clay, dated St. Catherine’s, Can¬ 
ada West, November 1, 1864, is an acknowledgment and confession of what they had 
attempted, and a suggestion made through J. P. Benjamin, rebel Secretary of 
State, of what remained to be done, in order to make the “chemical preparation ” 
efficient. Speaking of this Bennett H. Young, he says : “ You have doubtless 

learned through the press of the United States of the raid on St. Albans by about 
twenty-five Confederate Soldiers, led by Lieutenant Bennett II. Young, of their 
attempt and failure to burn the town ; of their robbery of three banks there of the 
aggregate amount of about two hundred thousand dollars ; of their arrest in Can¬ 
ada by the United States forces of their commitment and the pending preliminary 
trial. ” 

He makes application, in aid of Young and his associates, for additional docu¬ 
ments, showing that they acted upon the authority of the Confederate States gov¬ 
ernment, taking care to say, however, that he held such authority at the time, but 
that it ought to be more explicit, so far as regards the particular facts complained 
of. He states that he met Young at Halifax, in May, 1864, who developed his 
plans for retaliation on the enemy; that he, Clay, recommended him to the rebel 
Secretary of War; that after this, “Young was sent back by the Secretary of 
War with a commission as Second Lieutenant, to execute his plans and purposes, 

but to report to Hon.-and myself.” Young afterwards “proposed passing 

through New England, burning some towns and robbing them of whatever he 
could convert to the use of the confederate government. This I approved as 
justifiable retaliation. He attempted to burn the town of St. Albans, Vermont, 
and would have succeeded but for the failure of the chemical preparation, with 
which he was armed. He then robbed the banks of funds amounting to over 
two hundred thousand dollars. That he was not prompted by selfish or merce¬ 
nary motives I am as well satisfied as I am that he is an honest man. He as¬ 
sured me before going that his effort would be to destroy towns and farm-houses, 
but not to plunder or rob ; but he said if, after firing a town, he saw he could 
tak o funds from a bank or any house, and thereby might inflict injury upon the 
enemy and benefit his own government, he would do so. He added most em¬ 
phatically that whatever he took should be turned over to the government, or 
its representatives in foreign lands. My instructions to him were to destroy 



TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


313 


whatever was valuable, not to stop to rob : but if. after firing a town, he could 
seize and carry off money, or treasury or bank notes, he might do so upon con¬ 
dition that they were delivered to the proper authorities of the confederate 
States,” that is, to Clay himself. 

When ho wrote this letter, it seems that this accredited agent of Jefferson Da¬ 
vis was as strongly impressed with the usurpation and despotism of Mr. Lin¬ 
coln's Administration as some of the advocates of his aiders and abettors seem 
to be at this day ; and he indulges in the following statement:—“ All that a large 
portion of the Northern people, especially in the Northwest, want to resist the 
oppressions of the despotism at Washington is a leader. They are ripe for re¬ 
sistance, and it may come soon after the Presidential election. At all events, 
it must come, if our armies are not overcome, or destroyed, or dispersed. No 
people of the Anglo-Saxon blood can long endure the usurpations and tyran¬ 
nies of Lincoln.” Clay does not sign the despatch, but indorses the bearer of 
it as a person who can identify him and give his name. The bearer of that let¬ 
ter was the witness, Richard Montgomery, who saw Clay write a portion of the 
letter, and received it from his hands, and subsequently delivered to the Assist¬ 
ant Secretary of War of the United States, Mr. Dana. That the letter is in 
Clay’s handwriting is clearly proved by those familiar with it. Mr. Montgom¬ 
ery testifies that he was instructed by Clay to deliver this letter to Benjamin, 
the rebel Secretary of State, if he could get through to Richmond, and to tell 
him what names to put in the blanks. 

This letter leaves no doubt, if any before existed, in the mind of any one who 
had read the letter of Oldham, and Davis 7 indorsement thereon, that the“ chem¬ 
ical preparations” and “ combustible materials 77 had been tried and had failed, 
and it became a matter of great moment and concern that they should be so 
prepared as, in the words of Davis, “to overcome the difficulties heretofore ex¬ 
perienced ;” that is to say, complete the work of destruction, and secure the 
perpetrators against personal injury or detection in the performance of it. 

It only remains to be seen whether Davis, the procurer of arson and of the 
indiscriminate murder of the innocent and unoffending necessarily resultant 
therefrom, was capable also of endeavoring to procure, and in fact did procure, 
the murder, by direct assassination, of the President of the United States, and 
others charged with the duty of maintaining the government of the United 
States, and of suppressing the rebellion in which this arch-traitor and conspira¬ 
tor was engaged. 

The official papers of Davis, captured under the guns of our victorious army 
in his rebel capital, identified beyond question or shadow of doubt, and placed 
upon your record, together with the declarations and acts of his co-conspirators 
and agents, proclaim to all the world that he was capable of attempting to ac¬ 
complish his treasonable procuration of the murder of the late President, and 
other chief officers of the United States, by the hands of hired assassins. 

In the fall of 1864, Lieutenant W. Alston addressed to “ his Excellency 77 a 
letter now before the court, which contains the following words : 

“ I now offer you my services, and if you will favor me in my designs, I will 
proceed, as soon as my health will permit, to rid my country of some of her 
deadliest enemies, by striking at the very heart’s blood of those who seek to 
enchain herin slavery. I consider nothing dishonorable having such a tenden¬ 
cy. All I ask of you is, to favor me by granting me the necessary papers, &c., 
to travel on.I am perfectly familiar with the North, and feel confi¬ 

dant that I can execute anything I undertake. I was in the raid last June in 
Kentucky, under General John II. Morgan: . . . was taken prisoner. . . 

. escaped from them by dressing myself in the garb of a citizen. ... I 
went through to the Canadas, from whence, by the assistance of Colonel J. P. 
Holcomb, I succeeded in working my way around and through the blockade. .. 

. . I should like to have a personal interview with you in order to perfect 

the arrangements before starting.” 

Is there any room to doubt that this was a proposition to assassinate, by the 
hand of this man and his associates, such persons in the North as he deemed the 


314 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


“deadliest enemies” of the rebellion? The weakness of the man who, for a 
moment, can doubt that such was the proposition of the writer of this letter, is 
certainly an object of commiseration. What had Jefferson Davis to say to this 
proposed assassination of the “ deadliest enemies” in the North of his great 
treason? Did the atrocious suggestion kindle in him indignation against the 
villain who offered, with his own hand, to strike the blow? Not at all. On the 
contrary, he ordered his private secretary, on the 2Dth of November. 1864, to 
indorse upon the letter these words:—“Lieutenant A. W. Alston, accompanied 
raid into Kentucky, and was captured ; but escaped into Canada, from whence 
he found his way back. Now offers his services to rid the country of some, of 
its deadliest enemies ; asks for papers, &c. Respectfully referred, by direction 
of the President, to the honorable Secretary of War.” It is also indorsed, for 
attention, “ By order.” Signed “ J. A. Campbell, Assistant Secretary of War.” 

Note the fact, in this connection, that Jefferson Davis himself, as well as his 
subordinates, had, before the date of this indorsement, concluded that Abraham 
Lincoln was the “deadliest enemy” of the rebellion. You hear it in the rebel 
camp in Virginia, in 1863 ; declared by Booth, then and there present, and as¬ 
sented to by rebel officers, that “ Abraham Lincoln must be killed.” You 
hear it in that slaughter-pen in Georgia, Andersonville, proclaimed among rebel 
officers, who, by the slow torture ot' starvation, inflicted cruel and untimely 
death on ten thousand of your defenders, captives in their hands whispering, 
like demons, their horrid purpose, “ Abraham Lincoln must be killed.” And in 
Canada, the accredited agents of Jefferson Davis, as early as October, 1864. and 
afterward, declared that “ Abraham Lincoln must be killed,” if his re-election 
could not be prevented. These agents in Canada, on the 13th of October. 1864, 
delivered, in cipher, to be transmitted to Richmond by Richard Montgomery, 
the witness whose reputation is unchallenged, the following communication :— 

“ October 13, 1864.—We again urge the immense necessity of our gaining 
immediate advantages. Strain every nerve for victory. We now look upon 
the re-electian of Lincoln in November as almost certain, and we need to whip 
these hirelings to prevent it. Besides, with Lincoln re-elected, and his armies 
victorious, we need not hope even for recognition, much less the help mention¬ 
ed in our last, Holcomb will explain this. Those figures of the Yankee army 
are correct to a unit. Our friends shall be immediately set to work as you 
direct.” 

To which an official reply, in cipher, was delivered to Montgomery by an 
agent of the State Department in Richmond, dated October 19, 1864, as fol¬ 
lows :— 

“ Your letter of the 13th inst. is at hand. There is yet time enough to colo¬ 
nize many voters before November. A blow will shortly be stricken here. It 
is not quite time. General Longstrcet is to attack Sheridan without delay, and 
then move North as far as practicable toward unprotected points. This will 
be made instead of the movement before mentioned. He will endeavor to as¬ 
sist the Republicans in collecting their ballots. Be watchful and assist him.” 

On the very day of the date of this Richmond despatch, Sheridan was at¬ 
tacked and with what success history will declare. The court will not fail to 
notice that the re-election of Mr. Lincoln is to be prevented, if possible, by any 
and every means. Nor will they fail to notice that Holcomb is to “ explain 
this”—the same person who, in Canada, was the friend and adviser of Alston, 
who proposed to Davis the assassination of the “ deadliest enemies” of the re¬ 
bellion. 

In the despatch of the 13th of October, which was borne by Montgomery, and 
transmitted to Richmond in October last, you will find these words“ Our 
friends shall be immediately set to work as you direct.” Mr. Lincoln is the 
subject of that despatch. Davis is therein notified that his agents in Canada 
look upon the re-election of Mr. Lincoln in November as almost certain. In 
this connection he is assured by those agents that the friends of their cause are 
to be set to work as Davis had directed. 

The conversations which are proved by witnesses, whose character stands un- 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


315 


impeached, disclose what “ work” the “friends” were to do under the direction 
of Davis himself. Who were these “ friends,” and what was “ the work” which 
his agents, Thompson, Clay, Tucker, and Saunders, had been directed to set 
them at? Let Thompson answer for himself. In a conversation with Richard 
Montgomery, in the summer of 1864, Thompson said “ he had his friends, con¬ 
federates, all over the Northern States, who were ready and willing to go any' 
length for the good of the cause of the South, and he could at any time have 
the tyrant Lincoln, or any other of his advisers that he chose, put out of hi 3 
way ; that they would not consider it a crime when done for the cause of the 
confederacy.” This conversation was repeated by the witness in the summer 
of 1864 to Clement C. Clay, who immediately stated :—“ That is so ; we are all 
devoted to our cause, and ready to go any length—to do anything under the 
sun.” 

At and about the time that these declarations of Clay and Thompson were 
made, Alston, who made the proposition, as we have seen, to Davis, to be fur¬ 
nished with papers, to go North and rid the confederacy of some of its “ deadli¬ 
est enemies,” was in Canada. He was, doubtless, one of the “ friends” referred 
to. As appears from the testimony of Montgomery, Payne, the prisoner at 
your bar, was about that time in Canada, and was seen standing by Thompson’s 
door, engaged in a conversation with Clay, between whom and the witness some 
words were interchanged, when Clay stated he (Payne) was one of their friends, 
“we trust him.” It is proved beyond a shadow of doubt, that in October last, 
John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of the President, was also in Canada and upon 
intimate terms with Thompson, Clay, Sanders, and other rebel agents. Who 
can doubt, in the light of the events which have since transpired, that he was 
one of the “friends” to be “set to work” as Davis had already directed; not, 
perhaps, as yet to asassinate the President, but to do that other work which is 
suggested in the letter of Oldham, indorsed by Davis in his ow T n hand, and 
spread upon your record, the work of the secret incendiary, which was to “ fill 
the people of the North with terror and consternation.” 

The other “ work” spoken of by Thompson, putting the tyrant Lincoln and any 
of his advisers out of the way, was work doubtless to be commenced only after the 
re-election of Mr. Lincoln, which they had already declared in their despatch 
to their employer, Davis, was with them a foregone conclusion. At all events, 
it was not until after the Presidential election in November that Alston pro¬ 
posed to Davis to go North on the work of assassination ; nor was it until after 
that election that Booth was found in possession of the letter which is in evi¬ 
dence, and which discloses the purpose to assassinate the President. Being as¬ 
sured, however, wdien Booth was with them in Canada, as they had already de¬ 
clared, in their despatch, that the re-election of Mr. Lincoln was certain, in 
which event there would be no hope for the confederacy, they doubtless en¬ 
tered into the arrangement with Booth as one of their “friends.” that as soon as 
that fact was determined he should go “to work,” and as soon as might be 
“ rid the confederacy of the tyrant Lincoln and of his advisers.” 

That these persons named upon your record, Thompson, Sanders, Clay, 
Cleary and Tucker, were the agents of Jefferson Davis, is another fact estab¬ 
lished in this case beyond a doubt. They made affidavit of it themselves, of 
record here, upon the examination of their “ friends.” charged with the raid 
upon St. Albans, before Judge Smith, in Canada. It is in evidence also by the 
letter of Clay, before referred to. 

The testimony, to which I have thus briefly referred, shows, by the letter of 
his agents, of the 13th of October, that Davis had before directed those agents 
to set his friends at work. By the letter of Clay, it seems that his direction had 
been obeyed, and his friends had been set to work, in the burning and robb ry 
and murder at St. Albans, in the attempt to burn the city of New York, and in the 
attempt to introduce pestilence into this Capital and into the house of the Presi¬ 
dent. It having appeared, by the letter of Alston, and the indorsement there¬ 
on, that Davis had in November entertained the proposition of sending agents, 
that is to say, “friends,” to the North, to not only “spread terror and conster- 


316 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


nation among the people,” by means of his “ chemical preparations,” but also, 
in the words of that letter, “to strike,” by the hands ot assassins, at theheart's 
blood” of the deadliest enemies in the North to the confederacy of traitors ; it 
has also appeared by the tcstimpny of many respectable witnesses, among oth¬ 
ers the attorneys who represented the people of the United States and the State 
of Vermont, in the preliminary trial of the raiders in Canada, that Clay, Thomp¬ 
son, Tucker, Sanders, and Cleary, declared themselves the agents of the con¬ 
federacy. It also clearly appears by the correspondence referred to and the 
letter of Clay, that they were holding and at any time able to command blank 
commissions from Jefferson Davis to authorize their friends to do whatever work 
they appointed them to do, in the interest of the rebellion, by the destruction 
of life and property in the North. 

If a prima facie case justifies, as we have seen by the law of evidence it does, 
the introduction of all declarations and acts of any of the parties to a conspira¬ 
cy, uttered and done in the prosecution of the common design, as evidence 
against all the rest, it results, that whatever was said or done in furtherance of 
the common design, after this month of October, 1804, by either of these agents 
in Canada, is evidence not only against themselves, but against Davis as well, 
of his complicity with them in the conspiracy. 

Mr. Montgomery testifies that he met Jacob Thompson in January, at Mon¬ 
treal, when he said that “ a proposition had been made to him to rid the world 
of the tyrants, Lincoln, Stanton, Grant, and some others : that he knew the men 
who had made the proposition were bold, daring men, able to execute what 
they undertook ; that he himself was in favor of the proposition, but had deter¬ 
mined to deier his answer until he had consulted his government at Richmond ; 
that he was then only awaiting their approval.” This was about the middle of 
January, and, consequently, more tUan a month after Alston had made his 
proposition direct to Davis, in writing, to go North and rid their confederacy 
of some of its “ deadliest enemies.” It was at the time of this conversation that 
Payne, the prisoner, was seen by the witness standing at Thompson’s door in 
conversation with Clay. This witness also shows the intimacy between Thomp¬ 
son, Clay, Cleary, Tucker, and Sanders. 

A few days after the assassination of the President, Beverly Tucker said to this 
witness “that President Lincoln deserved his death long ago; that it was a pity he 
didn't have it long ago; and it was too bad that the boys had not been allowed to 
act when they wanted to.” 

This remark undoubtedly had reference to the propositions made in the fall to 
Thompson, and also to Davis, to rid the South of its deadliest enemies by their as¬ 
sassination. Cleary, who was accredited by Thompson as his confidential agent, 
also stated to this witness that Booth was one of the party to whom Thompson had 
referred in the conversation in January, in which he said he knew the men who 
were ready to rid the world of the tyrant Lincoln, and of Stanton and Grant. 
Cleary also said, speaking of the assassin ation, “that it was a pity that the whole 
work had not been done,” and added, “they hard better look out, we are not done 
yet;” manifestly referring to the statement made by his employer, Thompson, be¬ 
fore in the summer, that not only the tyrant Lincoln, but Stanton and Grant, and 
others of his advisers, should he put out of the way. Cleary also stated to this 
witness that Booth had visited Thompson twice in the winter, the last time in De¬ 
cember, and had also been there in the summer. 

Sanford Conover testified that he had been for some time a clerk in the 
War Department, in Richmond, that in Canada he knew Thompson, Sanders, 
Cleary Tucker, Clay and other rebel agents; that he knew John H. Surratt 
and John Wilkes Booth; that he saw Booth there upon one occasion, and Surratt 
upon several successive days; that he saw Surratt (whom he describes) in April 
last, in Thompson’s room, and also in company with Sanders; that about the 
6th or 7th ot April last Surratt delivered to Jacob Thompson a despatch brought 
by him from Benjamin, at Richmond, inclosing one in cipher from Davis. Thomp¬ 
son had before this proposed to Conover to engage in a plot to assassinate Presi- 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


317 


dent Lincoln and Iris Cabinet, and on this occasion he laid his hand upon these des¬ 
patches and said, “This makes the thing all right,” referring to the assent of the 
rebel authorities, and stated that the rebel authorities had consented to the plot to 
assassinate Lincoln, Johnston, the Secretary of War, Secretary of State, Judge Chase 
and General Grant. Thompson remarked further that the assassination of these 
parties would leave the government of the United States entirely without a head ; 
that there was no provision in the Constitution of the United States by which they 
could elect another President, if these men were put out of the way. 

In speaking of this assassination of the President and others, Thompson said that 
it was only removing them from office ; that the killing of a tyrant was no murder. 
It seems that he had learned precisely the same lesson that Alston had learned in 
November, when he communicated with Davis, and said, speaking of the President’s 
assassination, “he did not think anything dishonorable that would serve their 
cause.” Thompson stated at the same time that he had conferred a commission 
on Booth, and that everybody engaged in the enterprise would be commissioned, 
and if it succeeded, or failed, and they escaped into Canada, they could not be re¬ 
claimed under the extradition treaty. The fact that Thompson and other rebel 
agents held blank commissions, as I have said, has been proved, and a copy of one 
of them is on record here. 

This witness also testifies to a conversation with William C. Cleary, shortly af¬ 
ter the surrender of Lee’s army, and on the day before the President’s assassina¬ 
tion, at the St. Lawrence Hotel, .Montreal, when speaking of the rejoicing in the 
States over the capture of Richmond, Cleary said, “ they would put the laugh on 
the other side of their mouth in a day or tico." These parties knew that Conover 
was in the secret of the assassination, and talked with him about it as freely as 
they would speak of the weather. Before the assassination he had a conversation 
also with Sanders, who asked him if he knew Booth well, and expressed some ap¬ 
prehension that Booth would “make a failure of it; that he was desperate and 
reckless, and he was afraid the whole thing would prove a failure.” 

Dr. James D. Merritt testifies that George Young, one of the parties named in 
the record, declared in his presence, in Canada, last fall, that Lincoln should 
never be inaugurated ; that they had friends in Washington, who, I suppose, were 
some of the same friends referred to in the despatch of October If, and which Da¬ 
vis had directed them “to set to work.” George N. Sanders also said to him 
“ that Lincoln would keep himself mighty close if he did serve another term ; ’ 
while Steele and other confederates declared that the tyrant never should serve an¬ 
other term. He heard the assassination discussed at a meeting of these rebel 
agents in Montreal in February last. “Sanders said they had plenty of money to 
accomplish the assassination, and named a number of persons who were ready and 
willing to engage in undertaking to remove the President, Vice President, the 
Cabinet, and some of the leading Generals. At this meeting he read a letter 
which he had received from Davis, which justified him in making any arrange¬ 
ments that he could to accomplish the object. This letter the witness heard read, 
and it, in substance declared that if the people in Canada and the Southerners in 
the States were willing to submit to be governed by such a tyrant as Lincoln, he 
did not wish to recognize them as friends. The letter was read openly; it was 
also handed to Colonel Steele, George Young, Hill and Scott to read. This was 
about the middle of February last. At this meeting Sanders named over the per¬ 
sons who were willing to accomplish the assassination, and among the persons 
thus named was Booth, whom the witness had seen in Canada in October, also 
George Harper, one of the conspirators named on the record, Caldwell, Randall, 
Harrison and Surratt. 

The witness understood, from the reading of the letter, that if the President, 
Vice-President, and Cabinet could be disposed of, it would satisfy the people of the 
North that the Southerners had friends in the North; that a peace could be ob¬ 
tained on better terms; that the rebels had endeavored to bring about a war be¬ 
tween the United States and England, and that Mr. Seward, through his energy 
and sagacity, had thwarted all their efforts ; that was given as a reason for remov- 


318 


TRIAL OF TEE ASSASSINS. 


ing him. On the 5th or Cth of April last, this witness met George Harper, Cald¬ 
well, Randall, and others, who are spoken of in this meeting at Montreal as en¬ 
gaged to assassinate the President and Cabinet, when Harper said they were going 
to the States to make a row such as had never been heard of, and added that “if 
I (the witness) did not hear of the death of Old Abe, of the Vice-President, and of 
Gen. Dix, in less than.ten days, I might put him down as a fool. That was on 
the Cth of April. lie mentioned that Booth was in Washington at that time. He 
said they had plenty of friends in Washington, and that some fi teen or twenty 
were going.” 

This witness ascsrtained on the 8th of April that Harper and others had left for 
the States. The proof is that these parties could come through to Washington from 
Montreal or Toronto in thirty-six hours. They did come, and within the ten days 
named by Harper the President was murdered. Some attempts have been made 
to discredit this witness (Dr. Mott), not by the examination of witnesses in court, 
not by any apparent want of truth in the testimony, but by the ex parte statements 
of these rebel agents in Canada and their hired advocates in the United States. 
There is a statement upon record, verified by an official communication from the 
War Department, which shows the truthfulness o? this witness, and that is, that 
before the assassination, learning that Harper and his associates had started for the 
States, informed as he was of their purpose to assassinate the President, Cabinet and 
leading Generals, Merritt deemed it his duty to call, and did call, on the 10th 
of April, upon a justice of the peace in Canada, named Davidson, and gave him 
the information that lie might take steps to stop these proceedings. The corres¬ 
pondence on this subject with Davidson has been brought into court. Dr. Merritt 
testifies, further, that after this meeting in Montreal he had a conversation with 
Clement C. Clay, in Toronto, about the letter from Jefferson Davis, which San¬ 
ders had exhibited, in which conversation Clay gave the witness to understand that 
he knew the nature of the letter perfectly, and remarked that he thought the end 
would justify the means.” The witness also testifies to the presence of Booth with 
Sanders in Montreal last fall, and of Surratt in Toronto in February last. 

The court must be satisfied, by the manner of tins and other witnesses to the 
transactions in Canada, as well as by the fact that they are wholly uncontra dieted 
in any material matter that they state, that they speak the truth, and that the sev¬ 
eral parties named on your record—Davis, Thompson, Cleary, Tucker, Clay, 
Young, Harper, Booth and John II. Surratt—did combine and conspire together 
in Canada to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, William H. 
Seward and Ulysses S. Grant. That this agreement was substantially entered into 
by Booth and the agents of Davis in Canada as early as October, there can not be 
any doubt. The language of Thompson at that time and befoi’e was that he was in 
favor of the assassination. His further language was, that he knew the men who 
were ready to do it, and Booth, it is shown, was there at that time, arid, as Thomp¬ 
son’s .Secretary says, was one of the men referred to by Thompson. 

The fact that others, besides the parties named on the record, were, by the 
terms of the conspiracy, to be assassinated, in nowise affects the case now ontrial. 
If it is true that these parties did conspire to murder other parties as well as those 
named upon the record, the substance of the charge is proved. 

It is also true that if, in pursuance of that conspiracy, Booth, confederated with 
Surratt and the accused, killed and murdered Abraham Lincoln, the. charge and 
specification is proved literally as stated on your record, although their conspiracy 
embraced other persons. In law the case stands, though it may appear that the 
conspiracy was to kill and murder the parties named in the record, and others not 
named in the record. If the proof is that the accused, with Booth, Surratt, Davis, 
&c., conspired to kill and murder one or more of the persons named, the charge of 
conspiracy is proved. 

'1 he declaration of Sanders, as proved, that there was plenty of money to carry 
out this assassination, is very strongly corroborated by the testimonv of Mr. Camp¬ 
bell, cashier of the Ontario Bank, who stated that Thompson, during the current 
year preceding the assassination, had upon deposit in the Montreal branch of the 


TRIAL OP THE ASSASSINS. 319 

Ontario Bank, six hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars, besides large sums to 
his credit in other banks in the Province. 

There is a further corroboration ot the testimony of Conover as to the meeting of 
Thompson and Surratt in Montreal, and the delivery of the despatches from Rich¬ 
mond, on the 6th or 7th of April, first, in the fact which is shown, by the testi¬ 
mony of Chester, that in the winter or spring Booth said he himself or some 
other party must go to Richmond; and, second by the letter of Arnold, dated 27th 
March last, that he preferred Booth’s first query, that he would first go to Rich¬ 
mond and see how they would take it, manifestly alluding to the proposed assassin¬ 
ation of the President. 

It does not follow because Davis had written a letter in February which, in sub¬ 
stance, approved the general object that the parties were fully satisfied with it, be¬ 
cause it is clear there was to be some arrangement made about the funds, and it is 
also clear that Davis had not before as distinctly approved and sanctioned this act 
as his agents either in Canada or here desired. Booth said to Chester, “ We 
must have money, there is money in this business, and if you will enter into it I 
will place three thousand dollars at the disposal of your family, but I have no 
money myself, and must go to Richmond, ” or one of the parties must go, “ to get 
money to carry out the enterprise.” This was one of the arrangements that was 
to be “made right in Canada.” The funds at Thompson’s disposal, as the 
banker testifies, were exclusively raised by drafts of the Secretary of the Treasury 
of the confederate States upon London, deposited in their bank to the credit of 
Thompson. 

Accordingly, about the 27th of March, Surratt did go to Richmond. On the 3d 
of April he returned to Washington, and the same day left for Canada. Before 
leaving he stated to Weichman that when in Richmond he had a conversation 
with Davis and with Benjamin. The fact in this connection is not to be over¬ 
looked, that on or about the day Surratt arrived in Montreal, April 6, Jacob Thomp¬ 
son, as the cashier of the Ontario Bank states, drew of these Confederate funds 
the sum of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in the form of certificates, 
which as the bank officer testifies, “might be used anywhere.” 

What more is wanting? Surely no word further need be spoken to show that 
John Wilkes Booth was in this conspiracy; that John H. Surratt was in this con¬ 
spiracy ; and that Jefferson Davis and his several agents named in Canada, were 
in this conspiracy. If any additional evidence is wanting to show the complicity 
of Davis in it, let the paper found in the possession of his hired assassin Booth 
come to bear witness against him. That paper contained the secret cipher which 
Davis used in his State Department in Richmond, which he employed in commun¬ 
icating with his agents in Canada, and which they employed in the letter of Octo¬ 
ber 13, notifying him that “their friends would be set to work as he had directed . ” 

The letter in cipher found in Booth’s possession is translated here by the use of 
the cipher machine now in court, which, as the testimony of Mr. Dana shows, he 
brought from the rooms of Davis’ State Department in Richmond. Who gave 
Booth this secret cipher? Of what use was it to him if he was not in confedera¬ 
tion with Davis ? 

But there is one other item of testimony that ought, among honest and intelli¬ 
gent people at all conversant with this evidence, to end all further inquiry as to 
whether Jefferson Davis was one of the parties with Booth, as charged upon this 
record, in the conspiracy to assassinate the President and others. That is, that on 
the fifth day after the assassination, in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, a 
telegraphic despatch was received by him, at the house of Mr. Bates, from John 
C. Breckinridge, his rebel Secretary of War, which dispatch is produced here, 
identified by tiie telegraph agent, and placed upon your record in the words fol¬ 
lowing : 

“Greensboro’, April 19, 1865.—His Excellency President Davis :—President 
Lincoln was assassinated in the theatre at Washington on the night of the 14th 
inst. Reward’s house was entered on the same night, and he was repeatedly 
stabbed, and is probabl} mortally wounded. John C. Breckinridge.” 


320 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


At the time this despatch was handed to him, Davis was addressing a meeting 
from the steps of Mr. Bates’ house, and after reading tne despatch to the people, 
he said : — “If it were to be done, it were better it were well done.” Shortly af¬ 
terward, in the house of the witness, in the same city, Breckinridge, having come 
to sec Davis, stated his regret that the occurrence had happened, because he deem¬ 
ed it unfortunate for the people of the South at that time. Davis replied, referring 
to the assassination, “ Well, General, I don’t know; if it were to be done at all, 
it were better that it were well done; and if the same llad been done to Andy 
Johnson, the beast, and Secretary Stanton, the job would then be complete .” 

Accomplished as this man was in all the arts of a conspirator, he was not equal 
to the task—as, happily in the good providence of God, no mortal man is—of con¬ 
cealing, by any form of words, any great crime which he may have meditated or 
perpetrated either against his government or his fellow-man. It was doubtless 
furthest from Jefferson Davis’ purpose to make confession, and yet he did make 
confession. Ilis guilt demanded utterance; that demand he could not resist: 
therefore bis words proclaimed his guilt, in spite of his purpose to conceal it. He 
said, “ if it were to be done, it were better it were well done." Would any man 
ignorant of the conspiracy be able to devise and fashion such a form of speech as 
that ? Had not the President been murdered ? Had he not reason to believe that 
the Secretary of State had been mortally wounded ! Yet he was not satisfied but 
was compelled to say, “it were better it were well done;" that is to say, all that 
had been agreed to be done had not been done. 

Two days afterwards, in his conversation with Breckinridge, he not only repeats 
the same form of expression, “If it were to be done it were better it were well 
done" but adds these words :—“ And if the same had been done to Andy John¬ 
son, the beast, and to Secretary Stanton, the job would then be complete." He 
would accept the assassination of the President, the Vice President, of the Secretary 
of State, and the Secretary of War as a complete execution of the “job,” which he 
had given out upon contract, and which he had “made all right,” so far as the pay 
was concerned, by the despatches he had sent to Tnompson by Surratt, one of his 
hired assassins. 

Whatever may be the convictions of others, my own conviction is that Jefferson 
Davis is as clearly proven guilty of this conspiracy as is John Wilkes Booth, by 
whose hand Jefferson Davis inliicted the mortal wound upon Abraham Lincoln. 
Ilis words of intense hate, and rage, and disappointment are not to be overlooked 
—that the assassins had not done their work well; that they had not succeeded in 
robbing the people altogether of their constitutional Executive and his advisers, 
and hence he exclaims, “if they had killed Andy Johnson the beast!” Neither 
can he conceal his chagrin and disappointment that the war minister of the repub¬ 
lic, whose energy, incorruptible integrity, sleepless vigilence, and executive ability 
had organized day by day, month by month, and year by year, victory for our 
arms, had escaped the knife of the hired assassins. The job, says this pro¬ 
curer of assassination, was not well done; it had been better if it had been well 
done! Because Abraham Lincoln had been clear in his great office, and had saved 
the nation’s life by enforcing the nation’s laws this traitor declares he must be mur¬ 
dered ; because Air. Seward, as the foreign Secretary of the country, had thwarted 
the purposes of treason to plunge his country into war with England, he must be 
murdered; because, upon the murder of Mr. Lincoln, Andrew Johnson would 
succeed the Presidency, and because he had been true to the Constitution and 
Government, faithful found among the faithless of his own State, clinging to the 
fulling pillars of the Republic when others had fled, he must be murdered ; and be¬ 
cause the Secretary of War had taken care, by the faithful discharge of his duties, 
that the Republic should live and not die, he must be murdered. Inasmuch as 
these two faithful officers were not also assassinated, assuming that the Secretary of 
State was mortally wounded, Davis could not conceal his disappointment and cha¬ 
grin that the work was not “well done ; ” that “ the job was not complete.” 

Thus it appears by the testimony, that the proposition made to Davis was to 
kill and murder the deadliest enemies of the Confederacy—not to kidnap them, as 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


321 


1b now pretended here: that by the declaration of Sanders, Tucker, Thompson, 
Clay, Cleary, Harper and Young,, the conspirators in Canada, the agreement and 
combination among them was to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, Wm. H. 
Seward, Andrew Johnson. Ulysses 3. Grant, Edwin M. Stanton, and others of his 
advisers, and not to kidnap them; it appears from every utterance of John Wilkes 
Booth, as well as from the Charles Selby letter, of which mention will presently be 
made, that, as early as November, the proposition with him was to kill and mur¬ 
der, not to kidnap. 

Since the lirst examination of Conover, who testified, as the court will remem¬ 
ber, to many important facts against these conspirators and agents of Davis in Can¬ 
ada, among others, the terrible and fiendish plot disclosed by Thompson, Pallen 
and others, that they had ascertained the volume of water in the reservoir supply¬ 
ing New York city, estimated the quantity of poison required to render it deadly, 
and intended thus to poison a whole city. Conover returned to Canada, by direc¬ 
tion of this court, for the purpose of obtaining certain documentary evidence. 
There, about the 9th of June, lie met Beverly Tucker, Sanders and other conspir¬ 
ators, and conversed with them. Tucker declared that Secretary Stanton, whom 
he denounced as “ a scoundrel,” and Judge Holt, whom he called “a bloodthirsty 
villain,” “could protect themselves as long as they remained in office by a guard, 
but that would not always be the case, and, by the Eternal, he had a large account 
to settle with them.” 

After this, the evidence of Conover here having been published, these parties 
called upon him and asked him whether he had been to Washington, and had tes¬ 
tified before this court. Conover denied it; they insisted, and took him to a room, 
where, with drawn pistols, they compelled him to consent to make an affidavit 
that he had been falsely personated here by another, and that he would make that 
affidavit before a Mr. Kerr, who would witness it. They then called in Mr. Kerr 
to certify to the public that Conover had made such a denial. They also compell¬ 
ed this witness to furnish for publication an advertisement offering a reward of five 
hundred dollars for the arrest of the “infamous and perjured scoundrel” who had 
recently personated James W. Wallace under the name of Sandford Conover, and 
testified to a tissue of falsehoods before the Military Commission at Washington, 
which advertisement was published in the papers. 

to these facts Mr. Conover now testifies, and also discloses the fact that these 
same men published in the report of the proceedings before Judge Smith an affida¬ 
vit, purporting to be his, but which he never made. The affidavit which he in 
fact made, and which was published in a newspaper at that time, produced 
here, is set out substantially upon your record, and agrees with the testimony 
upon the same point given by him in this Court. 

To suppose that Conover ever made such an affidavit voluntarily as the one 
wrung from him as stated 13 impossible. Would he advertise for his own ar¬ 
rest., and charge himself with falsely impersonating himself ? But the fact can 
not evade observation that, when these guilty conspirators saw Conover’s testi¬ 
mony before this Court in the public prints, revealing to the world the atro¬ 
cious plots of these felon conspirators, conscious of the truthfulness of his state¬ 
ments. they cast about at once for some defence before the public, and devised the 
foolish and stupid invention of compelling him to make an affidavit that he was 
not Sandford Conover, was not in this Court, never gave this testimony, but 
was a practicing lawer at Montreal. This infamous proceeding, coupled with 
the evidence before detailed, stamps these ruffian plotters with the guilt of this 
conspiracy. . . , 

John Wilkes Booth having entered into this conspiracy in Canada, as has 
been shown, as early as October, he is next found in the city o*f New York, on 
the 11th day, as I claim of November, in disguise, in conversation with another, 
tue conversation disclosing to the witness, Mrs. Hudspeth, that they had some 
m itter of personal interest between them ; that upon one of them the lot had 
fallen to go to Washington ; upon the other to go to Newbern. This witness 
udoii being shown the photograph of Booth swears “ that the tace is the same 

21 


322 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


as that of one of those men, who she says was a man of education and culture, 
as appeared by his conversation, and who had a scar like a bite near the jaw¬ 
bone. It is a fact proved herefby the Surgeon-General, that Booth had a scar 
on the side of his neck. 

Mrs. Hudspeth heard him say he would leave for Washington the day after 
to-morrow. His companion appeared angry because it had not fallen on him 
to go to Washington. This took place after the Presidential election in Novem¬ 
ber. She can not fix the precise date, but says she was told General Butler 
left New York on that day. The testimony discloses that General Butler’s 
army was on the 11th of November leaving New York. The register of the 
National Hotel shows that Booth left Washington on the early morning train, 
November 11, and that he returned to this city on the 14th. Chester testifies 
positively to Booth's presence in New York early in November. 

This testimony shows most conclusively that Booth was in New York on the 
11th of Novemlaer. The early morning train on which he left Washington 
would reach New York early in the afternoon of that day. Chester saw him 
there early in November, and Mrs. Hudspeth not only identifies his picture, 
but describes his person. The scar upon his neck near his jaw was peculiar, 
and is well described by the witness as like a bite. On that day Booth had a 
letter in his possession which he accidently dropped in the street car in the 
presence of Mrs. Hudspeth, the witness, who delivered it to Major-General Dix 
the same day, and by whom, as his letter on file before this Court shows, the 
same was transmitted to the War Department November 17, 1864. That letter 
contains these words: 

‘‘Dear Louis :—The time has at last come .that we have all so wished for, 
and upon you every thing depends. As it was decided before you left, we 
were to cast lots. We accordingly did so, and you are to be the Charlotte Cor- 
day of the nineteenth century. When you remember the awful, solemn vow 
that was taken oy us, you will feel there is no drawback. Abe must die , and 
now. You can choose your wepaons —the cup, the knife, the bullet. The cup 
failed us once, and might again. Johnson, who will give this, has been like 
an enraged demon since the meeting, because it has not fallen on him to rid 
the world of a monster. * * You know where to find your friends. Your 

disguises are so perfect and complete, that without one knew your face, no police 
telegraphic despatch would catch you. The English gentleman, Ilarcourt, must 
not act hastily. Remember, he has ten days. Strike for your home, strike for 
your country ; bide your time, but strike sure. Get introduced ; congratulate 
him ; listen to his stories; (not many more will the brute tell to earthly friends :f 
do anything but fail, and meet us at the appointed place within the fortnight. 
You will probably hear from me in Washington. Sanders is doing us no good in 
Canada. “ Chas. Selby.” 

The learned gentleman, (Mr. Cox), in his very able and carefully considered 
argument in defense of O’Laughlin and Arnold, attached importance to this letter, 
and doubtless very clearly saw its bearing upon the case, and, therefore, under¬ 
took to show that the witness, Mrs. Hudspeth, must be mistaken as to the person 
of Booth. The gentleman assumes that the letter of General Dix, of the 17th of 
November last, transmitting this letter to the War Department, reads that the 
party who dropped the letter was heard to say that he would start to Washington 
on Friday night next, although the word “next” is not in the letter, neither is it 
in the quotation which the gentleman makes, for he quotes it fairly; yet he con¬ 
cludes that this would be the 18th of November. 

Now the fact is, the 11th of November last was Friday, and the register of the 
National Hotel bears witness that Mrs. Hudspeth is not mistaken; because her 
language is, that Booth said he would leave for Washington day after to-morrow, 
which would be Sunday, the 13th, and if in the evening, would bring him to Wash¬ 
ington on Monday, the 14th of November, the day on which the register shows he 
did return to the National Hotel. As to the improbability which the gentleman 
raises, on the conversation happening in a street car, crowded with people, there 
was nothing that transpired, although the conversation was earnest, which enabled 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


323 


tlie witness, or could have enabled any one, in the absence of this letter, or of the 
subsequent conduct of Booth to form the least idea of the subject-matter of their 
conversation. 

The gentleman does not deal altogether fairly in his remarks touching the letter 
of General Dix ; because, upon a careful examination of the letter, it will be found 
that he did not form any such judgment as that it was a hoax for the Sunday Mer¬ 
cury, but he took care to forward it to the Department, and asked attention to it; 
when, as appears by the testimony of the Assistant Secretary of War, Mr. Dana, 
the letter was delivered to Mr. Lincoln, who considered it important enough to 
endorse it with the word “Assassination,” and file it in his office, where it was 
found alter the commission of this crime, and brought into this court to bear wit¬ 
ness against his assassins. 

Although this letter would imply that the assassination spoken of was to take 
place speedily, yet tlie party was to bide his time. Though he had entered into 
the preliminary arrangements in Canada, although conspirators had doubtless 
agreed to co-operate with him in the commission of the crime, and lots had been 
cast tor the chief part in the bloody drama, yet it remained for him as the leader 
and principal of the hired assassins, by whose hand their employers were to strike 
the murderous blow, to collect about him and bring to Washington such persons 
as would be willing to lend themselves, for a price, to the horrid crime, and likely 
to give the necessary aid and support in its consummation. The letter declares 
that Abraham Lincoln must die, and now , meaning as soon as the agents can be 
employed and the work done. To that end you will bide your time. 

But, says the gentleman, it could not have been the same conspiracy charged 
here to which this letter refers. Why not? It is charged here that Booth, with 
the accused and others, conspired to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln; that is 
precisely the conspiracy disclosed in the letter. Granted that the parties on trial 
had not then entered into the combination; if they at any time afterward entered 
into it they became parties to it, and the conspiracy was still the same. But, says 
the gentleman, the words of the letter imply that the conspiracy was to be execut¬ 
ed within the fortnight. Booth is directed, by the name of Louis, to meet the 
writer within a fortnight. It by no means follows that he was to strike within the 
fortnight because he was to meet his co-conspirator within that time, and any such 
conclusion is excluded by the words, “Bide your time.” 

Even if the conspiracy was to be executed within the fortnight, and was not so 
executed, and the same party, Booth, afterwards, by concert and agreement with 
the accused and others, did execute it by “striking sure” and killing the President, 
that act, whenever done, would be but the execution of this same conspiracy. The 
letter is conclusive evidence of so much of this conspiracy as relates to the murder 
of President Lincoln. As Booth was to do anything but fail, he immediately there¬ 
after sought out the agents to enable him to strike sure, and execute all that he had 
agreed with Davis and his co-confederates in Canada to do—to murder the Presi¬ 
dent, the Secretary of State, the Vice-President, General Grant and Secretary 
Stanton. 

Even Booth’s co-conspirator, Payne, now on his trial, by his defence admits all 
this, and says Booth had just been to Canada, “was filled with a mighty scheme, 
and was lying in wait for agents.” Booth asked the co-operation of the prisoner 
Payne, and said :—“ I will give you as much money as you want; but first you 
must swear to stick by me. It is in the oil business. This you are told by the ac¬ 
cused was early in March last. Thus guilt bears witness against itself. 

We find Booth in New York in November, December and January, urging 
Chester to enter into this combination, assuring him that there was money in it; 
that they had “ friends on the other side,” that if he would only participate in it, 
he would never want for money while he lived, and all that was asked of him was 
to stand at and open the back door of Ford’s Theatre. Booth, in his interview 
with Chester, confesses that he is without money himself, and allows Chester to 
reimburse him the fifty dollars which he (Booth) had transmitted to him in a let¬ 
ter for the purpose of paying his expenses to Washington as one of the parties to 


324 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


this conspiracy. Booth told him, although he himself was penniless, “there is 
money in this, we have friends on the other side,” and if you will but engage, I 
will have three thousand dollars deposited at once for the use of your family. 

Failing to secure the services of Chester, because his soul recoiled with abhor¬ 
rence from the foul work of assassination and murder, he found more willing in¬ 
struments in others whom he gathered about him. Men to commit the assassina¬ 
tions, horses to secure speedy and certain escape were to be provided, and to this 
end Booth, with an energy worthy of a better cause, applies himself. For this lat¬ 
ter purpose he told Chester he had already expended $5,000. In the latter part of 
November, 1864, he visits Charles county, Maryland, and is in company with one 
of the prisoners, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, with whom he lodged over night, and 
through whom he procures of Gardener one of the several horses which were at his 
disposal, and used by him and his co-conspirators in Washington on the night of 
the assassination. 

Some time in January last, it is in testimony, that the prisoner Mudd intro¬ 
duced Booth to John H. Surratt and the witness Weichman ; that Booth invited 
them to the National Hotel; that when there, in the room which Booth took 
them, Mudd went out into the passage, called Booth out and had a private con¬ 
versation with him, leaving the witness and Surratt in the room. Upon their 
return to the room Booth went out with Surratt, and upon their coming in, all 
three, Booth, Surratt, and Samuel A. Mudd, went out together, and had a con¬ 
versation in the passage, leaving the witness alone. Up to the time of this in¬ 
terview it seems that neither the witness nor Surratt had any knowledge of 
Booth, as they were then introduced to him by Dr. Mudd. Whether Surratt 
had in fact previously known Booth it is not important to inquire. Mudd deem¬ 
ed it necessary, perhaps, a wise precaution, to introduce Surratt to Booth ; he 
also deemed it necessary to have a private conversation with Booth shortly af¬ 
terwards, and directly upon that to have a conversation together, with Booth 
and Surratt alone. 

Had this conversation, no part of which was heard by the witness, been perfectly 
innocent, it is not to be presumed that Dr. Mudd, who was an entire stranger to 
Weichman, would have deemed it necessary to hold the conversation secretly, nor 
to have volunteered to tell the witness, or rather pretend to tell him, what the con¬ 
versation was; yet he did say to the witness, upon their return to the room, by way 
of apology, I suppose, for the privacy of the conversation, that Booth had some 
private business with him, and wished to purchase his farm. This silly device, as 
is often the case in attempts at deception, failed in the execution ; for it remains to 
be shown how the fact that Mudd had private business with Booth, and that Booth 
wished to purchase his farm, made it at all necessary or even proper that they should 
both volunteer to call out Surratt, who up to that moment was a stranger to Booth. 
What had Surratt to do with Booth’s purchase of Mudd’s farm? And, if it was 
necessary to withdraw and talk by themselves secretly about the sale of the farm, 
why should they disclose the fact to the very man from whom they had concealed it ? 

Upon the return of these three parties to the room, they seated themselves at a 
table, and upon the back of an envelope Booth traced lines with a pencil, indicat¬ 
ing, as the witness states, the direction of roads. Why was this done? As Booth 
had been previously in that section of country, as the prisoner in his defence 
has taken great pains to show, it was certainly not necessary to anything connected 
with the purchase of Mudd’s farm that at that time he should be indicating the di¬ 
rection of roads to or from it; nor is it made to appear by anything in this testimo¬ 
ny, how it comes that Surratt, as the witness testifies, seemed to be as much inter¬ 
ested in the marking out of these roads as Mudd or Booth. It does not appear 
that Surratt was in any wise connected with, or interested in the sale of Mudd’s 
farm. From all that has transpired since this meeting at the hotel, it would seem 
that this plotting the roads, was intended, not so much to show the road to Mudd’s 
farm, as to point out the shortest and safest route for flight from the Capital, by the 
houses of all the parties in this conspiracy, to their “friends on the other side.” 

But, sa} s the learned gentleman (Mr. Ewing), in his very able argument in de- 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


325 


fence of this prisoner, why should Booth determine that his flight should be 
through Charles county ? The answer must be obvious, upon a moment’s reflec¬ 
tion, to every man, and could not possibly have escaped the notice of the counsel 
himself, but for the reason that his zeal for his client constrained him to overlook 
it. It was absolutely essential that this murderer should have his co-conspirators 
at convenient points along his route, and it does not appear in evidence that by the 
route to his friends, who had then fled from Richmond, which the gentleman (Mr. 
Ewing) indicates as the more direct, but of which there is not the slightest evi¬ 
dence whatever, Booth had co-conspirators atari equal distance from Washington. 
The testimony discloses further, that on the route selected by him for his flight, 
there is a large population that would be most likely to favor and aid him in the 
execution of his wicked purpose, and in making his escape. But it is a sufficient 
answer to the gentleman’s question, that Booth’s co-conspirator, Mudd, lived in 
Charles county. 

To return to the meeting at the hotel. In the light of other facts in this case, it 
must become clear to the Court that this secret meeting between Booth, Surratt 
and Mudd was a conference looking to the execution of this conspiracy. It so im¬ 
pressed the prisoner, it so impressed his counsel, that they deemed it necessary 
and absolutely essential to their defence to attempt to destroy the credibility of the 
witness Weichman. 

I may say here, in passing, that they have not attempted to impeach his general 
reputation for truth by the testimony of a single witness, nor have they impeached 
his testimony by calling a single witness to discredit one material fact to which he 
has testified in this issue. Failing to find a breath of suspicion against Weichman’s 
character, or to contradict a single fact to which he testified, the accused had to fly 
to the last resort, an alibi, and very earnestly did the learned counsel devote him¬ 
self to the task. 

It is not material whether this meeting in the hotel took place on the 23d of De¬ 
cember or in January. But, says the counsel, it was after the commencement or 
close of the Congressional holiday. That is not material; but the concurrent reso¬ 
lution of Congress shows that the holiday commenced on the 22d December, the 
day before the accused spent the evening in Washington. The witness as not cer¬ 
tain about the date of this meeting. The material fact is, did this meeting take 
place—either on the 23d of December or in January last? Were the private in¬ 
terviews there held, and was the apology made, as detailed, by Mudd and Booth 
after the secret conference to the witness? That the meeting did take place, and 
that Mudd did explain that these secret interviews, with Booth first, and with 
Booth and Surratt directly afterward, had relation to the sale of his farm, is con¬ 
fessedly admitted by the endeavor of the prisoner, through his counsel, to show that 
negotiations had been going on between Booth and Mudd for the sale of Mudd’s 
farm. 

If no such meeting was held, if no such explanation was made by Mudd to 
Weichman, can any man for a moment believe that a witness would have been 
called here to give any testimony about Booth having negotiated for Mudd’s farm? 
What conceivable connection has it with this case, except to show that Mudd's 
explanation to Weichman for his extraordinary conduct was in exact accordance 
with the fact ? Or was this testimony about the negotiations for Mudd’s farm in¬ 
tended to show so close an intimacy and intercourse with Booth that Mudd could 
not fail to recognize him when he came flying for aid to his house from the work of 
assassination ? It would be injustice to the able counsel to suppose that. 

I have said that it was wholly immaterial whether this conversation took place 
on the 23d of December or in January; it is in evidence that in both those months 
Booth was at the National Hotel; that he occupied a room there; that he arrived 
there on the 22d, and was there on the 23d of December last, and also on the 12th 
day of January. The testimony of the witness is, that Booth said he had just 
come in. Suppose this conversation took place in December, on the evening of the 
23d the time when it is proved by J. T. Mudd, the witness for the accused, that 
he, in company with Samuel A. Mudd, spent the night in Washington city. Is 


326 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


there anything in the testimony of that or any other witness to show that the ac¬ 
cused did not have and could not have had an interview with Booth on that even¬ 
ing ? 

J. T. Mudd testifies that he separated from the prisoner, Samuel A. Mudd, at 
the National Hotel, early in the evening of that day, and did not meet him again 
until the accused came in for the night at the Pennsylvania House, where he 
stopped. Where was Dr. Samuel A. Mudd during this interval? What does his 
witness know about him during that time ? How can he say that Dr. Mudd did 
not go up on Seventh street in company with Booth, then at the National; that he 
did not, on Seventh street, meet Surratt and Weichman; that he did not return to 
the National Hotel; that he did not have this interview, and afterwards meet him, 
the witness, as he testifies, at the Pennsylvania House? Who knows that the 
Congressional holiday had not, in fact, commenced on that day? What witness 
has been called to prove that Booth did not on either of those occasions occupy the 
room that had formerly been occupied by a member of Congress, who had tempo¬ 
rarily vacated it, leaving his books there ? 

Weichman, I repeat, is not positive as to the date, he is only positive as to 
the fact 5 and he disclosed voluntarily, to this Court, that the date could probably 
be fixed by a reference to the register of the Pennsylvania House. That reg¬ 
ister can not, of course, be conclusive of whether Mudd was there in January or 
not, for the very good reason that the proprietor admits that he did not know 
Samuel A. Mudd; therefore, Mudd might have registered by any other name. 
Weichman does not pretend to know that Mudd had registered at all. If Mudd 
was here in January, as a party to this conspiracy, it is not at all unlikely that, 
if he did register at that time in the presence of a man to whom he was wholly 
unacquainted, his kinsman not then being with him, he would register by a 
false name. 

But if the interview took place in December, the testimony of W r eickman 
bears as strongly against the accused as if it had happened in January. Weich¬ 
man says he does not know what time was occupied in this interview at the 
National Hotel 5 that it probably lasted twenly minutes 5 that alter the private 
interviews between Mudd, and Surratt, and Booth, which were not of very long 
duration, had terminated, the parties went to the Pennsylvania House, where 
Dr. Mudd had rooms, and after sitting together in the common sitting-room of 
the hotel, they left Dr. Mudd there about ten o’clock P. M., who remained during 
the night. Weichman’s testimony leaves no doubt that this meeting on Seventh 
street and interview at the National took place after dark, and terminated be¬ 
fore or about ten o'clock P. M. His own witness, J. T. Mudd, after stating that 
he separated from the accused at the National Hotel, says after he had got 
through a conversation with a gentleman of his acquaintance, he walked down 
the Avenue, went to several clothing stores, and “ after a while” walked round 
to the Pennsylvania House, and “ very soon after” he got there Dr. Mudd came 
in, and they went to bed shortly afterwards. 

What time he spent in his “ walk alone” on the Avenue, looking at clothing ; 
what period he embraces in the terms “ after a w hile,” when he returned to 
the Pennsylvania House, and “soon after” which Dr. Mudd got there, the wit¬ 
ness does not disclose. Neither does he intimate, much less testify, that he saw 
Dr. Mudd when he first entered the Pennsylvania House on that night after their 
separation. How does he know that Booth and Surratt and Weichman did not 
accompany Samuel A. Mudd to that house that evening? How does he know 
that the prisoner and those persons did not converse together some time in the 
sitting-room of the Pennsylvania House? Jeremiah Mudd has not testified that 
he met Mr. Mudd in that room, or that he was in it himself. 

He has, however, sworn to the fact, which is disproved by no one, that the 
prisoner was separated from him long enough that evening to have had the 
meeting with Booth, Surratt and Weichman, and the interviews in the National 
Hotel, and at the Pennsylvania House, to which Weichman has testified. Who 
is there to disprove it? Of what importance is it whether it was on tho 23d of 
December or in January? How does that affect the credibility of Weich- 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


327 


man? He is a man, as I have before said, against whose reputation for truth 
and good conduct they have not been able to bring one witness. If this meet¬ 
ing did by possibility take place that night, is there anything to render it im¬ 
probable that Booth, and Mu Id, and Surratt did have the conversation at the 
National Hotel to which Weichman testifies? Of what avail, therefore, is the 
attempt to prove that Dr. Mudd was not here during January, if it was clear 
that he was here on the 23d of December, 1864, and had this conversation with 
Booth ? That this attempt to prove an alibi during January has failed, is quite 
as clear as the proof of the fact that the prisoner was here on the evening of 
the ‘43d of December, and present in the National Hotel, where Booth stopped. 

The fact that the prisoner, Samuel A. Mudd. went with J. T. Mudd on that even¬ 
ing to the National Hotel, and there separated from him, is proved by his own 
witness, J. T. Mudd ; and that he did not rejoin him until they retired to bed in the 
Pennsylvania Hoii-e, is proved by the same witness, and contradicted by no¬ 
body. Does any one suppose there would have been such a siduous care to 
prove that the prisoner was with his kinsman all the time on the 23d of Decem¬ 
ber in Washington, if they had not known that Booth was then at the National 
Hotel, and that a meeting of the prisoner with Booth, Surattand Weichman on 
that day would corroborate and confirm Wcichman's testimony in every material 
statement he made concerning that meeting ? 

The accused having signally failed to account for his absence after he sepa¬ 
rated from his witness, J. T. Mudd, early in the evening of the 23d of December, 
at the National Hotel, until they had again met at the Pennsylvania House, when 
they retired to rest, he now attempts to prove an alibi as to the month of January. 
In this he has failed, as he failed in the attempt to show that he could not have 
met Booth, Surratt and Weichman on the 23d of December. 

For this purpose the accused calls Betty Washington. She had been at Mudd’s 
house every night since the Monday after Christmas last, except when here at 
Court, and says that the prisoner, Mudd, has only been away from home three 
nights during that time. This witness forgets that Mudd has not been at home 
any night or day since this court assembled. Neither does she account tor the 
three nights in which she swears to his absence from home. First, she says he 
went to Gardner’s party, second, he went to Giesboro, then to Washington. She 
does not know in what month he was away, the second time, all night. She only 
knows where he went from what he and his wife said, which is not evidence; but 
she does testify that when he left home and was absent over night, the second time, 
it was about two or three weeks after she came to his house, which would, if it 
were three weeks, make it just about the 15th of January, 1865, because she swears 
she came to his house on the first Monday after Christmas last, which was the 
26th day of December; so that the 15th of January would be three weeks, less 
one day from that time; and it might have been a week earlier, according to her 
testimony; as, also, it might have been a week earlier, or more, by Weichman’s 
testimony, for he is not positive as to the time. 

What I have said of the register of the Pennsylvania House, the head-quarters 
of Mudd and Atzeroth, I need not here repeat. That record proves nothing, save 
that Dr. Mudd was there on the 23d of December, which, as we have seen, is a 
fact, along with others, to show that the meeting at the National then took place. 
I have also called the attention of the Court to the fact, that if Mudd was at the 
house again in January, and did not register his name, the fact proves nothing ; or, 
if he did, the register only proves that he registered falsely; either of which facts 
might have happened without the knowledge of the witness called by the accused 
from that house, who does not know Samuel A. Mudd personally. 

The testimony of Henry L. Mudd, his brother, in support of this alibi , is that 
the prisoner was in Washington on the 23d of March, and on the 10th of April, 
four days before the murder! But he does not account for the absent night in 
January, about which Betty Washington testifies. Thomas Davis was called for 
the same purpose, but stated that he was himself absent one night in January, af¬ 
ter the 9th of that month, and he could not say whether Mudd was there on that 
night or not. He does testify to Mudd's absence over night three times, and fixes 


328 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


one occasion on the night of the 26th of January; this witness can not account for 
the absence of Mudd on the night referred to by Betty Washington. 

This matter is entitled to no further attention. It can satisfy no one, and the 
burden of proof is upon the prisoner to prove that he was not in Washington in 
January last. How can such testimony convince any rational man that Mudd was 
not here in January, against the evidence of an unimpeached witness, who swears 
that Samuel A. Mudd was in Washington in the month of January? Who, that 
has been examined here as a witness, knows that he was not? 

The Rev. Mr. Evans swears that he saw him in Washington last winter, and 
that at the same time he saw Jarboe, the one coming out of, and the other going 
into, a house on H street, which he was informed, on inquiry, was the house of 
Mrs. Surratt. Jarboe is the only witness called to contradict Mr. Evans, and he 
leaves it in extreme doubt whether he does not corroborate him, as he swear that 
he was here himself last winter or fall, but can not state exactly the time. Jar- 
boe’s silence on questions touching his own credibility leaves no room for any one 
to say that his testimony could impeach Mr. Evans, whatever he might swear. 

Miss Anna Id. Surratt is also called for the purpose of impeaching Mr. Evans. 
It is sufficient to say of her testimony on that point that she swears negatively only, 
that she did not see either of the persons named at her mother’s house. This tes¬ 
timony neither disproves, nor docs it even tend to disprove the fact put in issue by 
Mr. Evans. No one will pretend, whatever the form of her expression in giving 
her testimony, that she could say more than that she did not know the fact, as it 
was impossible that she could know who was, or who. was not, at her mother’s 
house, casually, at a period so remote. It is not my purpose, neither is it needful 
here, to question in any way the integrity of this young woman. 

It is further in testimony that Samuel A. Mudd was here on the 3d of March 
last, the day preceding the inauguration, when Booth was to strike the traitorous 
blow, and it was, doubtless, only by the interposition of that God who stands within 
the shadow and keeps watch above his own, that the victim of this conspiracy was 
spared that day from the assassin’s hand, that he might complete his work and sec 
the salvation of his country in the fall of Richmond and the surrender of its great 
army. Dr. Mudd was here on that day (the 3d of March', to abet, to encourage, 
to nerve his co-conspirator for the commission of this great crime. lie was car¬ 
ried away by the awful purpose which possessed him, and rushed into the room of 
Mr. Norton, at the National Hotel, in search of Booth, exclaiming excitedly, 
“I’m mistaken; I thought this Avas Mr. Booth’s room.” He is told Mr. Booth is 
abo\ r e, on the next floor. He is followed by Mr. Norton, because of his rude and 
excited behaviour, and, being followed, conscious of his guilty errand, he turns 
away, afraid of himself and afraid to be found in concert with his fellow confeder¬ 
ate. Mr. Norton identifies the prisoner, and has no doubt that Samuel A. Mudd 
is the man. 

The Rev. Mr. E\'ans also sAvears that, after the 1st. and before the 4th day of 
March last, he is certain that within that time, and on the 2d or 3d of March, he 
suav Dr. Mudd drive into Washington City. The endeavor is made by the ac¬ 
cused, in order to break doAvn this Avitness, by proving another alibi. The sister of 
the accused, Miss Fanny Mudd, is called. She testifies that she saAV the prisoner 
at breakfast in her father’s house on the 2d of March, about five o’clock in the 
morning, and not again until the 3d of March at noon. Mrs. Emily Mudd SAvears 
substantially to the same statement. Betty Washington, called for the accused, 
sAvears that he Avas at home all day at work Avith her on the 2d of March, and took 
breakfast at home. Frank Washington SAvears that Mudd Avas at home all day; 
that he saAV him Avhen he first came out in the morning, about sunrise, from his 
oavii house, and knoAvs that he Avas there all day Avith them. Which is correct, 
the testimony of his sisters or the testimony of servants? The sisters say that he 
Avas at their father’s house for breakfast on the morning of the 2d of March ; the 
servants say he Avas at home for breakfast Avith them on that day. If this testimo¬ 
ny is folloAved, it proves one alibi too much. It is impossible, in the nature of 
things, that the testimony of all these four Avitnesses can be true. 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


329 


Seeing this weakness in the testimony brought to prove this second alibi , the en¬ 
deavor is next made to discredit Mr. Norton for truth; and two witnesses, not 
more, are called, who testify that his reputation for truth has suffered by contested 
litigation between one of the impeaching witnesses and others. Four witnesses are 
called, who testify that Mr. Norton’s reputation for truth is very good ; that he is 
a man for high character for truth, and entitled to be believed whether he speaks 
under the obligation of an oath or not. The late Postmaster-General, Hon. Hora¬ 
tio King, not only sustains Mr. Norton as a man of good reputation for truth, but 
expressly corroborates his testimony, bv stating that in March last, about the 4th of 
March, Mr. Norton told him the same fact to which he swears here—that a man 
came into his room under excitement, alarmed his sister, was followed out by him¬ 
self, and went down stairs instead of going up; and that Mr. Norton told him this 
before the assassination, and about the time of the inauguration. 

What motive had Mr. Norton at that time to fabricate this statement? It de¬ 
tracts nothing from his testimony that he did not at that time mention the name 
of this man to his friend, Mr. King; because it appears from his testimony, and 
there is none to question the truthfulness of his statement, that at that time he did 
not know his name. Neither does it take from the force of this testimony that Mr. 
Norton did not, in communicating this matter to Mr. King, make mention of 
Booth’s name; because there was nothing in the transaction at the time, he being 
ignorant of the name of Mudd, and equally ignorant of the conspiracy between 
Mudd and Booth, to give the least occasion for any mention of Booth or of the 
transaction further than he detailed it. With such corroboration, who can doubt 
the fact that Mudd did enter the room of Mr. Norton, and was followed by him, on the 
3d of March last? Can he be mistaken in the man? Whoever looks at the pris¬ 
oner carefully once will be sure to recognize him again. 

For the present I pass from the consideration of the testimony showing Dr. 
Mudd's connection with Booth in this conspiracy, with the remark that it is in 
evidence, and I think established, both by the testimony adduced by the pros¬ 
ecution and that by the prisoner, that since the commencement of this rebel¬ 
lion, John H. Surratt visited the prisoner’s house ; that he concealed Surratt 
and other rebels and traitors in the w*oods near his house, Avhere for several 
days he furnished them with food and bedding ; that the shelter of the woods 
by night and by day was the only shelter that the prisoner dare furnish those 
friends of his ; that in November Booth visited him and remained overnight; 
that he accompanied Booth at that time to Gardner’s, from whom he purchased 
one of the horses used on the night of the assassination to aid Ihe escape of one 
of his confederates; that the prisoner had secret interviews with Booth and 
Surratt, as sworn to by the witness, Weichman, in the National Hotel, whether 
on the 23d of December or in January, is a matter of entire indifference ; that 
he rushed into Mr. Norton’s room on the 3d of March in search of Booth, and 
that he was here again on the 10th of April, four days before the murder of the 
President. 

Of his conduct after the assassination of the President, which is confirmatory 
of all this ; his conspiring with Booth, and his sheltering, concealing, and aid¬ 
ing the flight of his co-conspirator, this felon assassin. I shall speak hereafter, 
leaving him for the present with the remark that the attempt to prove his char¬ 
acter has resulted in showing him in sympathy with the rebellion, so cruel that 
he shot one of his slaves, and declared his purpose to send several of them to 
work on the rebel batteries in Richmond. 

What others, besides Samuel A. Mudd and John II. Surratt and Lewis Payne, 
did Booth, alter his return from Canada, induce to join him in this conspiracy 
to murder the President, the Vice-President, and Secretary of State, and the 
Lieutenant-General, wdth the intent thereby to aid the rebellion and overthrow 
the government and laws of the United States ? 

On the 10th of February the prisoners Arnold and O’Laughlin came to Wash¬ 
ington and took rooms in the house of Mrs. Vantyne ; were armed'; were there 
visited frequently by John Wilkes Booth, and alone ; were occasionally absent 
when Booth called,' who seemed anxious for their return ; would sometimes 


330 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


leave notes for them, and sometimes a request that when they came in they 
should be told to come to the stable. 

On the 18th of March last, when Booth played in The Apostate , the witness, 
Mrs. Vantyne, received from O’Laughlin complimentary tickets. These persons 
remained there until the 20th of March. They were visited, so far as the wit¬ 
ness knows, during their stay at her house only by Booth, save that on a single 
occasion an unknown man came to see them, and remained with them over 
night. They told the witness they were in the “ oil business.” With Mud d, 
the guilty purpose was sought to be concealed by declaring that he was in the 
“ land business with O’Laughlin and Arnold it was attempted to be conceal¬ 
ed by pretense that they were in the “ oil business/’ Booth, it is proved, had 
closed up all-connection with the oil business last September. Ihereisnota 
word of testimony to show that the accused, O’Laughlin and Arnold, ever in¬ 
vested or sought to invest, in any way or to any amount, in the oil business : 
their silly words betray them 5 they forget when they uttered that false state¬ 
ment that the truth is strong, next to the Almighty, and that their crime must 
find them out was the irrevocable and irresistible law of nature and of nature’s 
God. 

One of their co-conspirators, known as yet only to the guilty parties to this 
damnable plot and to the Infinite, who will unmask and avenge all.blood- 
guiltiness, comes to bear witness, unwittingly, against them. This unknown 
conspirator, who dates his letter at South Branch Bridge, April 0, l<st)5, mailed 
and postmarked Cumberland, Maryland, and addressed to John Wilkes Booth, 
by his initials, “ J. W. B., National Hotel, Washington, D. 0.,” was also in the 

oil speculation.” In that letter he says :— 

“ Friend Wilkes : I received yonrs of March 12, and reply as soon as practi¬ 
cable. 1 saw French. Brady, and others about the oil speculation. The sub¬ 
scription to the stock amounts to eight thousand dollars, and I add one thou¬ 
sand myself, winch is about all I can stand. Now, when you sink your well, 
go deep enough ; don’t fail ; everything depends upon you and your helpers. 
If you can not get through on your trip, alter you strike oil, strike through 
Thornton Gap and across by Capon, Romney, and down the Branch. I can 
keep you safe from all hardships for a year. I am clear of all surveillance now 
that infernal Purdy is beat. 

“I send this by Tom, and, if he don’t get drunk, you will get it on the 9th. 

At all events, it can not be understood if lost.. 

No more, only Jake will be at Green’s with the funds. LON. 

That this letter is not a fabrication is made apparent by the testimony of 
Purdy, whose name occurs in the letter. He testified that he had been a detec¬ 
tive in the government service, and that he had been falsely accused, as the 
letter recites, and put under arrest; that there w r as a noted rebel by the name 
of Green, living at Thornton Georgia ; that there was a servant, w r ho drank, 
known as “ Tom,” in the neighborhood of South Branch Bridge ; that there is 
an obscure route through the Gap, and as described in the letter 5 and that a 
man commonly called “ Lon” lives at South Branch Bridge. If the Court are 
satisfied, and it is for them to judge, that this letter w r as written before the as¬ 
sassination, as it purports to have been, and on the day of its date, there can be 
no question with any one w 7 ho reads it that the writer was in the conspiracy, 
and knew that the time of its execution drew nigh. If a conspirator, every 
word of its contents is evidence against every other party to this conspiracy. 

Who can fail to understand this letter? His words go deep enough,” “ don’t 
fail,” “ everything depends on you and your helpers,” “ if you can't get through 
on your trip after you strike oil, strike through Thornton Gap,” &c , and “ I 
can keep you safe from all hardships for a year,” necessarily imply that wiien 
he “ strikes oil” there will be an occasion for a flight; that a trip, or route, has 
already been determined upon ; that he may not be able to go through by that 
route ; in which event he is to strike for Thornton Gap, and across by Capon 
and Romney, and down the Branch, for the shelter which his co-conspirator 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


331 


offers him. “I am clear of ail surveillance now.” Does any one doubt that 
the man who wrote those words wished to assure Booth that he was no longer 
watched, and that Booth could safely hide with him from his pursuers? Does 
any one doubt, from the further expression in this letter, “ Jake will be at 
Green’s with the funds,” that this was a part of the price of blood, or that the 
eight thousand dollars subscribed by others, and the one thousand additional, 
subscribed by the writer, were also a part of the price to be paid ? 

“The oil business” which was the declared business of O’Laugliliri and Ar¬ 
nold, was the declared business of the infamous writer of this letter ; was the 
declared business of John H. Surratt; was the declared business of Booth him¬ 
self, as explained to Chester and Hess and Payne ; was “ the business” referred 
to in his telegrams to O’Laughlin, and meant the murder of the President, of his 
Cabinet, and of General Grant. The first of these telegrams is dated Washing¬ 
ton, 13th of March, and is addressed *to M. 0. Laughlin, No 57 North Exeter 
street, Baltimore, Maryland, and is as follows : Don,t you fear to neglect your 
business ; you had better come on at once. J. Booth.” The telegraph operator, 
Hoffman, who sent this despatch from Washington, swears that John Wilkes 
Booth delivered it to him in person on the day of its date ; and the handwriting 
of the original telegram is established beyond question to be that of Booth. 
The other telegram is dated Washington, March 27, addressed “ M. O. Laughlin 
Esq., 57 North Exeter street, Baltimore, Maryland,” and is as follows :—“ Get 
word to Sara. Come on with or without him on Wednesday morning. We sell 
that day sure ; don’t fail. J. Wilkes Booth.” 

The original of this telegram is also proved to be in the handwriting of Booth. 
The same referred to in this last telegram was doubtless the murder of the Presi¬ 
dent and others, the “oil speculation, ” in which the writer of the letter from South 
Branch Bridge, dated April 6, had taken a thousand dollars, and in which Booth 
said there was money, and Sanders said there was money, and Atzeroth said there 
was money. The words of this telegram, “ get word to Sam, ” meaning Samuel 
Arnold, his co-conspirator; who had been with him during all his stay at Wash¬ 
ington, at Mrs. Vantync’s. These parties to this conspiracy, after they had gone 
to Baltimore, had additional correspondence with Booth, which the Court must in¬ 
fer had relation to carrying out the purposes of their confederation and agreement. 
The colored witness, Williams, testifies that John Wilkes Booth handed him a 
letter for Michael O ’Laughlin, and another for Samuel Arnold, in Baltimore, some 
time in March last; one of which he delivered to O’Laughlin at the theatre in Bal¬ 
timore, and the other to a lady at the door where Arnold boarded in Baltimore. 

Their agreement and co-operation in the common object having been thus es¬ 
tablished, the letter written to Booth by the prisoner Arnold, dated March 27, 
18G5, the handwriting of which is proved before the Court and which was found 
in Booth’s possession after the assassination, becomes testimony against O’Laugh¬ 
lin, as well ns against the writer, Arnold, because it is an act done in furtherance 
of their combination. That letter is as follows : 

“ Dear John :—Was business so important that you could not remain in Balti¬ 
more till I saw you ? I came in as soon as I could, but found you had gone to 
Washington. I called also to see Mike, but learned from his mother that he had 
gone out with you and had not returned. I concluded, therefore, he had gone 
with you. How inconsiderate you have been ! When I left you, you stated that we 
would not meet in a month or so, and therefore I made application for employment, 
an answer to which I shall receive during the week. I told my parents I had 
ceased with you. Can I, then, under existing circumstances, act as you request ? 
You know full well that the Government suspicions something is going on there, 
therefore the undertaking is becoming more complicated. Why not, for the pres¬ 
ent, desist ? For various reasons, which, if you look into, you can readily see 
without my making mention, thereof, you, nor any one, can censure me for my 
present course. You have been its cause, for how can I now come after telling 
them I had left you ? Suspicion rests upon me now from my whole family and 
even parties in the country. 

“ 1 will be compelled to leave home any how, and how soon I care not. None, 


332 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


no not one, were more in favor of the enterprise than myself, and to-day would be 
there, had you not done as you have. By this, I mean manner of proceeding. I 
am, as you well know, in need. I am. you may say, in rags, whereas, to-day, I 
ought to be well clothed. I do not feel right stalking about with means, and more 
from appearances a beggar. I feel my dependence. But, even all this would 
have been, and was, forgotten, for I was one with you. Time more propitious will 
arrive yet. Do not act rashly or in haste. I would prefer your first query, ‘ Go 
and see how it will be taken in Richmond,’ and ere long, I shall be better prepared 
to again be with you. I dislike writing. Would sooner verbally make known my 
views. Yet your now waiting causes me thus to proceed. Do not in anger peruse 
this. Weigh all I have said, and as a rational man and a friend, you can not cen¬ 
sure or upbraid my conduct. I sincerely trust this, nor aught else that shall or 
may occur, will ever be an obstacle to obliterate our former friendship and attach¬ 
ment. Write me to Baltimore, as I expect to be in about Wednesday or Thurs¬ 
day ; or, if you can possibly come on, I will Tuesday meet you at Baltimore at B. 

“Ever, I subscribe myself, your friend, “Sam.’ 1 ’ 

Here is the confession of the prisoner Arnold, that he was one with Booth in this 
conspiracy; the further confession that they are suspected by the Government of 
their country, and the acknowledgment that, since they parted, Booth had com¬ 
municated among other things, a suggestion which leads to the remark in this 
letter, “ I would prefer your first query, ‘Go see how it will be taken at Rich¬ 
mond,’ and ere long 1 shall be better prepared to again be with you.” This is a 
declaration that affects Arnold, Booth and O’Laughlin alike, if the Court are satis¬ 
fied, and it is difficult to see how they can have doubt on the subject, that the 
matter to be referred to Richmond is the matter of the assassination of the Presi¬ 
dent and others, to effect which these parties had previously agreed and conspired 
together. It is a matter in testimony, by the declaration of John H. Surratt, who 
is as clearly proved to hflve been in this conspiracy and murder as Booth himself, 
that about the very date of this letter, the 27th of March, upon the suggestion of 
Booth, and with his knowledge and consent, he went to Richmond, not only to see 
“how it would be taken there,” but to get funds with which to carry out the enter¬ 
prise, as Booth had already declared to Chester, in one of his last interviews, when 
he said that he or “ some one of the party ” would be constrained to go to Rich¬ 
mond for funds to carry out the conspiracy. Surratt returned from Richmond, 
bringing with him some part of the money for which he went, and was then going 
to Canada, and, as the testimony discloses, bringing with him the despatches from 
Jefferson Davis to his chief agents in Canada, which, as Thompson declared to 
Conover, made the proposed assassination “all right.” Surratt, after seeing the 
parties here, left immediately for Canada, and delivered his despatches to Jacob 
Thompson, the agent of Jefferson Davis. This was done by Surratt upon the 
suggestion, or in exact accordance with the suggestion of Arnold, made on the 
27th of March, in his letter to Booth, just read, and yet you are gravely told that 
four weeks before the 27th of March Arnold had abandoned the conspiracy. 

Surratt reached Canada with these despatches, as we have seen, about the 6th 
or 7th of April last, when the witness, Conover, saw them delivered to Jacob 
Thompson, and heard their contents stated by Thompson, and the declaration from 
him that these despatches made it “all right.” That Surratt was at that time in 
Canada, is not only established by the testimony of Conover, but it is also in evi¬ 
dence that he told Weichman, on the 3d of April, that he was going to Canada, 
and on that day left for Canada, and afterwards, two letters addressed by Surratt, 
over the fictitious signature of John Harrison, to his mother, and to Miss Ward, 
dated at Montreal, were received by them on the 14th of April, as testified by 
Weichman and by Miss Ward, a witness called or the defence. Thus it appears 
that the condition named by Arnold in his letter had been complied with. Booth 
had “gone to Richmond ” in the person of Surratt, “to see how it would be tak¬ 
en.” The rebel authorities at Richmond had approved it, the agent had returned; 
and Arnold was, in his own words, thereby the bettei prepared to join Booth in the 
prosecution of this conspiracy. 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


333 


To this end Arnold went to Fortress Monroe. As his letter expressly declares, 
Booth said when they parted, “ we would not meet in a month or so, and therefore 
I made application tor employment—an answer to which I shall receive during the 
week.” lie did receive the answer that week from Fortress Monroe, and went 
there to await the “more propitious time,” bearing with him the weapon of death 
which Booth had provided, and ready to obey his call, as the act had been ap¬ 
proved at Richmond, and been made “all right.” Acting upon the same fact that 
the conspiracy had been approved in Richmond, and the funds provided, O’Laugh- 
lin came to Washington to identify General Grant, the person who was to become 
the victim of his violence in the final consummation of this crime—General Grant 
whom, as is averred in the specification, it had become the part of O’Laughlin bv 
his agreement in this conspiracy, to kill and murder. 

On the evening preceding the assassination, the 13th of April, by the testimony 
of three reputable witnesses, against whose truthfulness not one word is uttered 
here or elsewhere, O’Laughlin went into the house of the Secretary of War, where 
General Grant then was, and placed himself in position in the hall where he could 
see him, having declared before he reached that point to one of these witnesses that 
he wished to see General Grant. The house was brilliantly illuminated at the 
time ; two, at least, of the witnesses conversed with the accused, and the other 
stood very near to him, took special notice of his conduct, called attention .to it, 
and suggested that he be put out of the house and he was accordingly put out by 
one of the witnesses. These witnesses are confident and have no doubt, and so 
swear upon their oaths, that Michael O’Laughlin is the man who was present on 
that occasion. 

There is no denial on the part of the accused that he was in Washington during 
the day and during the night of April 13th, and also during the day and during 
the night of the 14th ; and yet, to get rid of this testimony, recourse is had to 
that common device—an alibi: a device never, I may say, more frequently re¬ 
sorted to than in this trial. But what an alibi! Nobody is called to prove it, 
save some men who, by their own testimony, were engaged in a drunken debauch 
through the evening. A reasonable man who reads their evidence can hardly be 
expected to allow it to outweigh the united testimony of three unimpeached 
and unimpeachable witnesses, who were clear in their statements, who entertain no 
doubt of the truth of what they say, whose opportunities to know were lull and 
complete, and who were constrained to take special notice of tire prisoner by reason 
of his extraordinary conduct. 

These witnesses describe accurately the appearance, stature and complexion of 
the accused, but, because they describe his clothing as dark or black, it is urged 
that as part of his clothing, although dark, was not black, the witnesses are mis¬ 
taken. O’Laughlin and his drunken companions (one of whom swears he drank 
ten times that evening) were strolling in the streets and in the direction of the 
house of the Secretary of War up the avenue; but you are asked to believe that 
these witnesses could not be mistaken in saying they were not off the avenue, above 
Seventh street, or on K street. I venture to say that no man who reads their tes¬ 
timony can determine satisfactorily, all the places that were visited by O’Laughlin 
and his drunken associates that evening from seven to eleven F. M. All this time, 
from seven to eleven F. M., must be accounted for satisfactorily before an alibi can 
be established. Laughlin does not account for all the time, for he left O’Laughlin 
after seven o’clock, and rejoined him, as he says, “I suppose about eight o’clock.” 
Grillet did not meet him until half-past ten, and then only casually saw him in 
passing the hotel. May not Grillet have been mistaken as to the fact, although 
he did meet O’Laughlin after eleven o’clock, the same evening as he swears? 

Furdy swears to seeing him in the bar with Grillet about half-past ten, but, as 
we have seen by Grillet's testimony it must have been after eleven o’clock. Mur¬ 
phy contradicts, as to time, both Grillet and Furdy, for he says it was half-past 
eleven or twelve o'clock when he and O’Laughlin returned to Rullman’s from 
Flatz’s; and Early swears the accused went from Rullman’s to Second street to a 
dance, about a quarter past eleven o’clock, when O’Laughlin took the lead in the 


334 


TRIAL OF TIIE ASSASSINS. 


dance, and stayed about one hour. I follow these witnesses no further. They con¬ 
tradict each other, and do not account for O’Laughlin all the time from seven to 
eleven o’clock. I repeat that no man can read their testimony without finding con¬ 
tradictions most material as to time, and coming to the conviction that they utterly 
fail to account for O’Laughlin’s whereabout’s on that evening. To establish an 
alibi the witnesses must know tlie fact and testify to it. O’Laughlin, Grillet, Pur¬ 
dy, Murphy and Earley utterly failed to prove it, and only succeed in showing 
that they did not know where O’Laughlin was all this time, and that some of them 
were gross!} 7 ' mistaken in what they testified, both as to time and place. 

The testimony of James B. Henderson is equally unsatisfactory. He is con¬ 
tradicted by other testimony of the accused as to place. He says O’Laughlin went 
up the avenue above Seventh street, but that he did not go to Ninth street. The 
other witnesses swear he went to Ninth street. He swears he went to the Canterbury 
about 9 o’clock, after going back from Seventh street to Pullman's. Laughlin swears 
that O’Laughlin was with him at the corner of the avenueand Ninth street at 9 o’clock 
and went from thereto Canterbury, while Early swears that O’Laughlin went up 
as far as Eleventh street, and returned and took supper with him at Whicker’s 
about 8 o'clock. If these witnesses prove an alibi, it is really against each other. 
It is folly to pretend that they prove facts which make it impossible that O’Laugh¬ 
lin could have been at the house of Secretary Stanton, as three witnesses swear 
he was, on the evening of the 13th of April, looking for General Grant. 

Has it not, by the testimony, thus reviewed, been established prima facie that in 
the months of February, March and April O’Laughlin had combined, confederated 
and agreed with John Wilkes Booth and Samuel Arnold to kill and murder Abra¬ 
ham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant ? Is 
it not established, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Booth had so conspired with 
the Rebel agents in Canada as early as October last; that he was in search of 
agents to do the work on pay, in the interests of the Rebellion, and that in this 
speculation Arnold and O’Laughlin had joined as early as February, and then, and 
after, with Booth and Surratt, they were in the “oil business,” which was the 
business of assassination by contract as a speculation? If this conspiracy on the 
part of O’Laughlin with Arnold is established even prima facie, the declarations 
and acts of Arnold and Booth, the other conspirators, in furtherance of the com¬ 
mon design, is evidence against O’Laughlin as well as against Arnold himself or 
the other parties. The rule of law is that the act or declaration of one conspirator, 
done in pursuance or furtherance of the common design, is the act or declaration of 
all the conspirators. (1 Wharton; TOG . 

The letter, therefore, of his co-conspirator, Arnold, is evidence against O’Laugh¬ 
lin, because it is an act in the prosecu Jon of the common conspiracy, suggesting 
what should be done in order to make it effective, and which suggestion, as has 
been stated, was followed out. The defence has attempted to avoid the force of 
this letter by reciting the statement of Arnold, made to Horner at the time he was 
arrested, in which he declared, among other things, that the purpose was to abduct 
President Lincoln and take him South ; that it was to be done at the theatre by 
throwing the President out of the box upon the floor of the stage, when the ac¬ 
cused was to catch him. The very announcement of this testimony excited deri¬ 
sion that such a tragedy meant only to take the President and carry him gently 
away! This pigmy to catch the giant as the assassins hurled him to the floor from 
an elevation of twelve feet! 

The Court has viewed the theatre, and must be satisfied that Booth, in leaping 
from the President’s box, broke his limb. The Court can not fail to conclude that 
this statement of Arnold was but another silly device, like that of “the oil busi¬ 
ness” which, for the time being, he employed to hide from the knowledge of his 
captor the fact that the purpose was to murder the President. No man can, for a 
moment, believe that any one of these conspirators hoped or desired, by such a pro¬ 
ceeding as that stated by this prisoner, to take the President alive, in the presence 
of thousands assembled in the theatre, after he had been thus thrown upon the 
floor of the stage, much mss to carry him through the city, through the lines of 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


335 


your army, and deliver him into the hands of the rebels. No such purpose was 
expressed or hinted at by the conspirators in Canada, who commissioned Booth 
to let these assassinations on contract. I shall waste not a moment more in 
combatting such an absurdity. 

Arnold does confess that he was a conspirator with Booth in this purposed 
murder ; that Booth had a letter of introduction to Dr. Mudd ; that Booth, 
O'Laughlin, Atzeroth, Surratt, a man with an alias, “ Mosby,” and another 
whom he does not know, and himself were parties to this conspiracy, and that 
Booth had furnished them all with arms. He concludes this remarkable state¬ 
ment to Horner with the declaration that at that time, to wit: ihe first week of 
March, or four weeks before he went to Fortress Monroe, he left the conspiracy, 
and that Booth told him to sell his arms if he chose. This is sufficiently answer¬ 
ed by the fact that four weeks afterwards, he wrote his letter to Booth, which 
was found in Booth's possession after the assassination, suggesting to him what 
to do in order to make the conspiracy a success, and by the further fact that 
at the very moment he uttered these declarations, part of his arms were found 
upon his person, and the rest not disposed of, but at his father’s house. 

A party to a treasonable and murderous conspiracy against the Government 
of his country can not be held to have abandoned it because he makes such a 
declaration as this, when he is in the hands of the officer of the law; arrested for 
his crime, and especially when his declaration is in conflict with and expressly 
contradicted by his written acts, and unsupported by any conduct of his which 
becomes a citizen and a man. 

If he abandoned the conspiracy, why did he not make known the fact to 
Abraham Lincoln and his constitutional advisers that these men, armed with 
the weapons of assassination, were daily lying in wait for their lives? To pre¬ 
tend that a man who thus conducts himself for weeks after the pretended aban¬ 
donment, volunteering advice for the successful prosecution of the conspiracy, 
the evidence of which is in writing, and about which there can be no mistake, 
has, in fact, abandoned it, is to insult the common understanding of men. 
O’Laughlin having conspired with Arnold to do this murder, is, therefore, as 
much concluded by the letter of Arnold of the 27th of March as is Arnold him¬ 
self. 

The further testimony touching O’Laughlin, that of Street, establishes the 
fact that about the 1st of April he saw him in confidential conversation with J. 
Wilkes Booth, in this city, on the Avenue. Another man, whom the witness 
does not know, was in conversation. O’Laughlin called Street to one side, and 
told him Booth was busily engaged with his friend, was talking privately to his 
friend. This remark of O’Laughlin’s is attempted to be accounted for, but the 
attempt failed ; his counsel taking the pains to ask wiiat indueeaO’Laughlin to 
make the remark, received the fit reply—“I did not see the interior of Mr. 
O’Laughlin’s mind ; I can not tell.” It is the province of this Court to infer 
why that remark was made, and what it signified. 

That John H. Surratt, George A. Atzeroth, Mary E. Surratt, David E. Harold, 
and Lewis Bayne, entered into this conspiracy with Booth, is so very clear upon 
this testimony, that little time need be occupied in bringing again before the 
Court the evidence which establishes it. By the testimony of Weichman we 
find Atzeroth in February at the house of the prisoner, Mrs. Surratt He en¬ 
quired for her or for John when he came, and remained over night. After 
this, and before the assassination, he visited there frequently, and at that house 
bore the name of “ Port Tobacco,” the name by which he was known in Cana¬ 
da among the conspirators there. The same witness testifies that he m ‘t him 
on the street, when he said he was going to visit Payne at the Herndon House, 
and also accompanied him, along with Harold and John H. Surratt to the thea¬ 
ter in March, to see Booth play in the Apostate. 

At the Pennsylvania House, one or two weeks previous to the assassination, 
Atzeroth made the statement to Lieutenant Keim, when asking for his knife which 
he had left in his room, a knife corrosponding in size with the one exhibited in 
Court, “I want that; if one fails I want the other,” wearing at the same time his 


336 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


revolver at his belt. lie also stated to Greenawalt, of the Pennsylvania House, in 
March, that he was nearly broke, hut had friends enough to give him as much 
money as would see him through, adding, “I am going away some of these days, 
but will return with as much gold as will keep me all my life-time.” Mr. Greena¬ 
walt also says that Booth had frequent interviews with Atzeroth, sometimes in the 
room, and at other times Booth would walk in and immediately go out, Atzeroth 
following. 

John M. Floyd testifies that some six weeks before the assassination, Harold, 
Aizeroth and John H. Surratt came to his house at Surrattsville, bringing with them 
two Spencer carbines, with ammunition, also a rope and wrench. Surratt asked 
the witness to take care of them and to conceal the carbines. Surratt took him 
into a room in the house, it being his mother’s house, and showed the witness 
where to put the carbines, between the joists on the second floor. The carbines 
were put there according to his directions and concealed. Marcus P. Norton saw 
Atzeroth in conversation with Booth at the National Hotel about the 2d or 3d of 
March; the conversation was confidential, and the witness accidentally heard them 
talking in regard to President Johnson, and say that “ the class of witnesses would 
be of that character that there could be little proven by them.” This conversation 
may throw some light on the fact that Atzeroth was found in possession of Booth's 
bank book! 

Colonel Nevens testifies that on the 12th of April last he saw Atzeroth at the 
Kirkwood House; that Atzeroth there asked him, a stranger, if he knew where 
Vice President Johnson was, and where Johnson’s room was. Colonel Nevens 
showed him where the room of the Vice President was, and told him that the Vice 
President was then at dinner. Atzeroth then looked into the dining-room, where 
Vice President Johnson was dining alone. Robert R. Jones, the clerk at the Kirk¬ 
wood House, states that on the 14th, the day of the murder, two days after this, 
Atzeroth registered his name at the hotel, G. A. Atzeroth, and took No. 126, re¬ 
taining the room that day, and carrying away the key. In this room, after the 
assassination, were found the knife and revolver, with which he intended to mur¬ 
der the Vice President. 

The testimony of all these witnesses leaves no doubt that the prisoner, George 
A. Atzeroth, entered into this conspiracy with Booth; that he expected to receive 
a large compensation for the services that he would render in its execution ; that 
he had undertaken the assassination of the Vice President for a price; that he, 
with Surratt and Harold, rendered the important service of depositing the arms 
and ammunition to be used by Booth and his confederates as a protection to their 
flight after the conspiracy had been executed, and that he was careful to have his 
intended victim pointed out to him, and the room he occupied in the hotel, so that, 
when he came to perform his horrid work, he would know precisely where to go 
and whom to strike. 

I take no further notice now of the preparation which this prisoner made for the 
successful execution of this part of the traitorous and murderous design. The ques¬ 
tion is, did he enter into this conspirary ? His language, overheard by Mr Norton, 
excludes every other conclusion. Vice President Johnson’s name was mentioned in 
that secret conversation with Booth, and the very suggestive expression was made 
between them that “little could be proved by the witnesses.” His confession in 
his defence is conclusive of his guilt. 

That Payne was in this conspiracy is confessed in the defence made by his coun¬ 
sel, and is also evident from the facts proved, that when the conspiracy was being 
organized in Canada, by Thompson, Sanders, Tucker, Cleary, and Clay, this man 
Payne stood at the door of Thompson: was recommended and endorsed by Clay 
with the words. “ We trust him ;” that after coming hither he first reported him¬ 
self at the house of Mrs. Mary E. Surratt, inquired for her and for John H. Sur¬ 
ratt, remained there for four days, having conversation with both of them; having 
provided himself wi ll means ot disguise, was also supplied with pistols and a knife, 
such as he afterwards used, and spurs, preparatory to his flight; was seen with John 
H. Surratt, practicing with knives such as those employed in this deed of assassina- 


TRIAL OF THB ASSASSINS. 


337 


tion, and now before the Court; was afterwards provided with lodging at the Hem- 
don House, at the instance of Surratt; was visited there by Atzeroth, attended 
Booth and Surratt to Ford’s Theatre, occupying with those parties the box, as I 
believe, and which we may readily infer, in which the President was afterwards 
murdered. * v * 

It further testimony be wanting that he had entered into the conspiracy, it may 
be found in the fact sworn to by Weichman, whose testimony no candid man will 
discredit, that about the 20th of March Mrs. Surratt, in great excitement, and 
weeping, said that her son John had gone away not to return, when about three 
hours subsequently, in the afternoon of the same day, John H. Surratt reappeared, 
came rushing in a state of frenzy into the room, in his mother’s house, armed, de¬ 
claring he would shoot whoever came into the room, and proclaiming that his pros¬ 
pects were blasted and his hopes gone; that soon Payne came into the same room, 
also armed and under great excitement, and was immediately followed by Booth, 
with his riding whip in his.hand, who walked rapidly across the floor from side to 
side, so much excited that for some time he did not notice the presence of the wit¬ 
ness. Observing Weichman, the parties then withdrew, upon a suggestion from 
Booth, to an upper room, and there had a private interview. From all that trans¬ 
pired on that occasion it is apparent that when these parties left the house that day 
it was with the full purpose of completing some act essential to the final execution 
of the work of assassination, in conformity with their previous confederation and 
agreement. They returned foiled, from what cause is unknown, dejected, angry 
and covered with confusion. 

It is almost imposing upon the patience of the Court to consume time in demon¬ 
strating the fact, which none conversant with the testimony of this case can for a 
moment doubt, that John H. Surratt and Mary E. Surratt were as surely in the 
conspiracy to murder the President as John Wilkes Booth himself. You have the 
frequent interviews between John II. Surratt and Booth; his intimate relations 
with Payne ; his visits from Atzeroth and Harold ; his deposit of the arms to cover 
their flight after the conspiracy should have been executed ; his own declared visit 
to Richmond to do what Booth himself said to Chester must be done, to wit: 
That he or some of the party must go to Richmond in order to get funds to carry 
out the conspiracy ; that he brought back with him gold, the price of blood, con¬ 
fessing himself that he was there; that he immediately went to Canada, delivered 
despatches in cipher to Jacob Thompson from Jefferson Davis, which were inter¬ 
preted and read by Thompson in the presence of the witness Conover, and in which 
the conspiracy was approved, and in the language of Thompson the proposed assas¬ 
sination was “made all right.” 

One other fact, if any other fact be needed, and I have done with the evidence 
which proves that John H. Surratt entered into this combination ; that is, that it 
appears by the testimony of the witness, the cashier of the Ontario Bank, Montreal, 
that Jacob Thompson, about the day these despatches were delivered, and while 
Surratt was then present in Canada, drew from that Bank of the Rebel funds there 
on deposit, the sum of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. This being done, 
Surratt finding it safer, doubtless, to go to Canada for the great bulk of funds, 
which were to be distributed among these hired assassins than to attempt to carry 
it through our lines direct from Richmond, immediately returned to Washington, 
and was present in this city, as is proven by the testimony of Mr. Reid, on the after¬ 
noon of the 14th of April, the day of the assassination, booted and spurred, ready 
for the flight whenever the fatal blow should have been struck. 

If he was not a conspirator and a party to this great crime, how comes it that 
from that hour to this no man has seen him in the Capital, nor has he been report¬ 
ed anywhere outside of Canada, having arrived at Montreal, as the testimony shows, 
on the 18th of April, four days after the murder. Nothing but his conscious cow¬ 
ardly guilt could possibly induce him to absent himself from his mother, as he does, 
upon her trial. Being one of these conspirators, as charged, every act of his in the 
prosecution of this crime is evidence against the other parties to the conspiracy. 

That Mary E. Surratt is as guilty as her son of having thus conspired, combined 

22 


388 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


and confederated to do this murder, in aid of this Rebellion, is clear. First, her 
house was the head-quarters of Booth, John H. Surratt, Atzeroth, Payne and 
Harold. She is inquired for by Atzeroth; she is inquired for by Payne, and she 
is visited by Booth, and holds private conversations with him. His picture, to¬ 
gether with that of the chief conspirator, Jefferson Davis, is found in her house. 
She sends to Booth for a carriage to take her, on the 11th of April, to Surrattsville, 
for the purpose of perfecting the arrangement deemed necessary to the successful 
execution of the conspiracy, end especially to facilitate and protect the conspirators 
in their escape from justice. On that occasion Booth, having disposed of his car¬ 
riage, gives to the agent she employed ten dollars with which to hire a conveyance 
for that purpose. 

And yet the pretence is made that Mrs. Surratt went on the 11th to Surrattsville 
exclusively upon her own private and lawful business. Can any one tell, if that be 
so, how it comes that she should apply to Booth for a conveyance, and how it comes 
that he, of his own accord, having no conveyance to furnish her, should send her 
ten dollars with which to procure it? There is not the slightest indication that 
Booth was under any obligation to her, or that she had any claim upon him, either 
for a conveyance or for the means with which to procure one, except that he was 
bound to contribute, being the agent of the conspirators in Canada and Richmond, 
whenever money might be necessary to the consummation of this infernal plot. 
On that day, the 11th of April, John H. Surratt had not returned from Canada 
with the funds furnished by Thompson. 

Upon that journey of the 11th, the accused, Mary E. Surratt, met the witnesss, 
John M. Floyd, at Uniontown. She called him, he got out of his carriage and 
came to her, and she whispered to him in so low a tone that her attendant could 
not hear the words, though Floyd, to whom they were spoken, did distinctly hear 
them, and testifies that she told him he should have those “ shooting irons” ready, 
meaning the carbines which her son and Harold and Atzeroth had deposited with 
him, and added the reason, “for they would soon be called for.” On the day of 
the assassination she again sent for Booth, had an interview with him in her own 
house, and immediately went again to Surrattsville, and then, at about 6 o’clock 
in the afternoon, she delivered to Floyd a field-glass, and told him to “have two 
bottles of whisky and the carbines ready, as they would be called for that night.” 

Having thus perfected the arrangement, she returned to Washington to her own 
house, at about half-past eight o’clock in the evening to await the final result. How 
could this woman anticipate on Friday afternoon, at six o’clock) that these arms 
would be called for and would be needed that night, unless she was in the conspira¬ 
cy and knew that the blow was to be struck, and the flight of the assassins at¬ 
tempted, and by that route? Was not the private conversation which Booth held 
with her in her parlor on the afternoon of the 14th of April, just before she left on 
this business, in relation to the orders she should give to have the arms ready? 

An endeavor is made to impeach Floyd. But the Court will observe that no 
witness has been called who contradicts Floyd’s statement in any material manner, 
neither has his general character for truth been assailed. How then is he impeach¬ 
ed? Is it claimed that his testimony shows that he was a party to the conspiracy? 
Then it is conceded by those who set up any such pretence that there was a con¬ 
spiracy. A conspiracy between whom ? There can be no conspiracy without the 
co-operation or agreement of two or more persons. Who were the other parties to 
it? Was it Mary E. Surratt? Was it John H. Surratt, George A. Atzeroth, 
David E. Harold ? These are the only persons, so far as his own testimony or the 
testimony of any other witness discloses, with whom he had any communication 
whatever on any subject immediately or remotely touching this conspiracy before 
the assassination. His receipt and concealment of the arms are, unexplained, evi¬ 
dence that he was in the conspiracy. 

The explanation is, that he was dependent upon Mary E. Surratt; was her tenant; 
and his declaration given in evidence by the accused himself, is, that “she had 
ruined him, and brought this trouble upon him.” But because he was weak enough, 
or wicked enough, to become the guilty depositary of these arms, and to deliver 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


339 


them on the order of Mary E. Surratt to the assassins, it does not follow that he is 
aot to be believed on oath. It is said that he concealed the tacts that the arms had 
been left and called for. lie so testifies himself, but he gives the reason that he 
did it only from apprehension of danger to his life. If he were in the conspiracy, 
his general credit being unchallenged, his testimony being uncontradicted in any 
material manner, he is to be believed, and can not be disbelieved, if his testimony 
is substantially corroborated by other reliable witnesses. Is he not corroborated 
touching the deposit of arms by the fact that the arms are produced in Court? one 
of which was found upon the person of Booth at the time he was overtaken and 
slain, and which is identified as the same which had been left with Floyd by Harold, 
Surratt and Atzeroth ? Is he not corroborated in the fact of the first interview 
with Mrs. Surratt by the joint testimony of Mrs. Offut and Lewis J. Weichman, 
each of whom testified, and they are contradicted by no one, that on Tuesday, the 
11th day of April; at Uniontown, Mrs. Surratt called Floyd to come to her, which 
he did, and she held a secret conversation with him ? Is he not corroborated as to 
the last conversation, on the 14th of April, by the testimony of Mrs. Offut, who 
swears, that upon the evening of the 14ch of April she saw the prisoner, Mary E. 
Surratt, at Floyd's house, approach and hold conversation with him? Is he not 
corroborated in the fact to which he swears, that Mrs. Surratt delivered to him 
at that time the field-glass wrapped in paper, by the sworn statement of Weich¬ 
man, that Mrs. Surratt took with her on that occasion two packages, both of 
which were wrapped in paper, and one of which he describes as a small pack¬ 
age, about six inches in diameter? The attempt was made, by calling Mrs. Offut 
to prove that no such package was delivered, but it failed ; she merely states, 
that Mrs. Surratt delivered a package wrapped in paper to her after her arri¬ 
val there, and before Floyd came in, which was laid down in the room. But 
whether it was the package about which Floyd testifies, or the other package 
of the two about which Weichman testifies, as having been carried there that 
day by Mrs. Surratt, does not appear. Neither does this witness pretend to say 
that Mrs. Surratt, after she had delivered it to her, and the witness had laid it 
down in the room, did not again take it up. if it were the same, and put it in the 
hands of Floyd. She only knows that she did not see that done ; but she did 
gee Floyd with a package like the one she received in the room before Mrs. 
Surratt left. How it came into his possession she is not able to state; nor 
what the package was that Mrs. Surratt first handed her ; nor which of the pack¬ 
ages it was she afterwards saw in the hands of Floyd. 

But there is one other fact in this case that puts forever at rest the question of 
the guilty participation of the prisoner, Mrs. Surratt, in the conspiracy and mur¬ 
der ; and that is that Payne, who had lodged four days in her house ; who during 
all that time had sat at her table, and who had often conversed with her ; when 
the guilt of his great crime was upon him, and he knew not where else he could so 
safely go to find a co-conspirator, and he could trust none that was not like him¬ 
self, guilty, with even the knowledge of his presence ; under cover of darkness, 
after wandering for three days and nights, skulking before the pursuing officers of 
justice, at the hour of midnight, found his way to the door of Mrs. Surratt, rang 
the bell, was admitted, and upon being asked, “ whom do you want to see?” re¬ 
plied, “Mrs. Surratt.” He was then asked by the officer, Morgan, what he came 
at that time of night for? to which he replied, “to dig a gutter in the morning; 
Mrs. Surratt had sent for him.” Afterwards he said, “ Mrs. Surratt knew he was 
a poor man, and came to him” 

Being asked where he worked, he replied, “ sometimes on I street;” and where 
he boarded, he replied, “he had no boarding-house, and was a poor man who got 
his living with the pick, ” which he bore upon his shoulder, having stolen it from 
the intrenchments of the capital. Upon being pressed again why he came there 
at that time of night to go to work, he answered that he simply called to see what 
time he should go to work in the morning. Upon being told by the officer, who 
fortunately had preceded him to this house, that he would have to go to the Pro¬ 
vost Marshal’s office, he moved and did not answer; whereupon Mrs. Surratt was 


340 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


asked to step into the hall and state whether she knew this man. Raising her 
right hand she exclaimed, “Before God, sir, I have not seen that man before; I 
have not hired him; I do not know anything about him.” The hall was brilliantly 
lighted. 

If not one word had been said, the mere act of Payne in flying to her house for 
shelter would have borne witness against her strong as proofs from Holy Writ. But 
when she denies, after hearing his declarations that she had sent for him, or that 
she had gone to him and hired him, and calls her God to witness that she had 
never seen him, and knew nothing of him, when, in point of fact, she had seen 
him for four successive days in her own house, in the same clothing which he then 
wore, who can resist for a moment the conclusion that these parties were alike 
guilty ? 

The testimony of Spangler’s complicity is conclusive and brief. It was impossi¬ 
ble to hope for escape after assassinating the President, and such others as might 
attend him in Ford’s Theatre, without arrangements being first made to aid the 
flight of the assassin, and to some extent prevent the immediate pursuit. 

A stable was to be provided close to Ford’s Theatre, in which the horses could 
be concealed and kept ready for the assassin’s use whenever the murderous blow 
was struck. Accordingly, Booth secretly, through Maddox, hired a stable in rear 
of the theatre and connecting with it by an alley, as early as the 1st of January 
last; showing that at that time he had concluded, notwithstanding all that has 
been said to the contrary, to murder the President in Ford’s Theatre and provide 
the means for immediate and successful flight. Conscious of his guilt he paid the 
rent for this stable, through Maddox, month by month, giving him the money, lie 
employed Spangler, doubtless for the reason that he could trust him with the se¬ 
cret, as a carpenter to fit up this shed, so that it would furnish room for two horses 
and provided the door with lock and key.. Spangler did this work for him. Then 
it was necessary that a carpenter, having access to the theatre, should be employed 
by the assassin to provide a bar for the outer door of the passage leading to the 
President’s box, so that when he entered upon his work of assassination, he would 
be secure from interruption from the rear. 

By the evidence, it is shown that Spangler was in the box, in which the Presi¬ 
dent was murdered, on the afternoon of the 14th of April, and when there damned 
the President and General Grant, and said the President ought to be cursed, he had 
got so many good men killed ; showing not only his hostility to the President, but 
the cause of it, that he had been faithful to his oath and had resisted that great 
rebellion in the interest of which his life was about to be sacrificed by his co-oon- 
spirators. In performing the work which had doubtless been intrusted to him by 
Booth, a mortice was cut in the wall. A Avooden bar was prepared, one end of 
which could be readily inserted in the mortice and the other pressed against the 
edge ot the door on the inside so as to prevent its being opened. Spangler had 
the skill and opportunity to do that work and all the additional work that was to be 
done. 

It is in evidence that the screws in “the keepers ” to the locks on each of the 
inner doors of the the box occupied by the President Avere draAvn. The attempt 
lias been made, on behalt of the prisoner, to show that this was done some time 
before, accidentally, and with no bad design, and had not been repaired by reason 
ot inadvertence ; but the attempt has utterly failed, because the testimony adduced 
for that purpose relates exclusively to but one of the two inner doors, Avhile the 
tact is, that the screivs Avere draAvn in both, and the additional precaution taken to 
cut a small hole through one of these doors through Avhich the party approaching 
and Avhile in the private passage Avould be enabled to look into the box and exam¬ 
ine the exact posture of the President before entering. It Avas also deemed essen¬ 
tial, in the execution of this plot, that some one should Avatch at the outer door, in 
the rear ot the theatre, by which alone the assassin could hope for escape. It Avas 
for this work Booth sought to employ Chester in January, offering $3,000 doivu 
ot the money ot his employers, and the assurance that he should never Avant. 

W hat Chester refused, bpangler undertook and promised to do. When Booth 


TRIAL OP THE ASSASSINS. 


341 


brought his horse to the rear door of the theatre, on the evening of the murder, he 
called for Spangler, who went to him, when Booth was heard to say to him, “ Ned, 
you'll help me all you can, won’t you.” To which Spangler replied, “ Oh, yes.” 
when Booth made his escape, it is testified by Col. Stewart, who pursued him 
across the stage and out through the same door, that as he approached it some one 
slammed it shut. Ritterspaugh, who was standing behind the scenes when Booth 
fired the pistol and fled, saw Booth run down the passage toward the back door, 
and pursued him; but Booth drew his knife upon him and passed out, slamming 
the door after him. Ritterspaugh opened it and went through, leaving it open 
behind him, leaving Spangler inside, and a position from which he readily could 
have reached the door. Ritterspaugh also states, that very quickly after he had 
passed through this door he was followed by a large man, the first who followed 
him, and who was, doubtless, Colonel Stewart. Stewart is very positive that he 
saw this door slammed ; that he himself was constrained to open it, and had some 
difficulty in opening it. 

He also testifies that as he approached the door a man stood near enough to have 
thrown it to with his hand, and this man, the witness believes, was the prisoner 
Spangler. Ritterspaugh has sworn that he left the door open behind him when he 
went out, and that he was followed by the large man, Colonel Stewart. Who 
slammed that door behind Ritterspaugh ? It was not Ritterspaugh; it could not 
have been Booth, for Ritterspaugh swears that Booth was mounting his horse at 
the time, and Stewart swears that Booth was upon his horse when he came out. 
That it was Spangler who slammed the door after Ritterspaugh may not only be 
inferred from Stewart’s testimony, but it is made very clear by his own conduct af¬ 
terward upon the return of Ritterspaugh to the stage. The door being then open, 
and Ritterspaugh being asked which way Booth went, had answered. Ritterspaugh 
says: “Then I came back on the stage, where I had left Edward Spangler: he 
hit me on the face with his hand, and said, ‘Don’t say which way he went.’ I 
asked him what he meant by slapping me in the mouth ? He said, ‘ For God’s sake, 
shut up.’ ” 

The testimony of Withers is adroitly handled to throw doubt upon these facts. 
It can not avail, for Withers says he was knocked in the scene by Booth, and when 
he “come to ” he got a side view of him. A man knocked down and senseless, on 
“coming to” might mistake anybody by a side view, for Booth. 

An attempt has been made by the defense to discredit this testimony of Rit¬ 
terspaugh, by showing his contradictory statements to Gifford, Carlan, and Lamb, 
neither of whom do in fact contradict him, but substantially sustain him. None 
but a guilty man would have met the witness with a blow for stating which way 
the assassin had gone. A like confession of guilt was made by Spangler when 
the witness, Miles, the same evening, and directly after the assassination, came 
to the back door, where Spangler was standing with others, anfl. asked Spang¬ 
ler who it was that held the horse, to which Spangler replied :—Hush ; don’t 
say anything about it.” He confessed his guilt again when he denied to Mary 
Anderson the fact, proved here beyond all question, that Booth had called him 
when he came to that door with his horse, using the emphatic words, “ No, he 
did not; he did not call me.” 

The rope comes to bear witness against him, as did the rope which Atzeroth 
and Harold and John H. Surratt had carried to Surrattsville and deposited there 
with the carbines. 

It is only surprising that the ingenious counsel did not attempt to explain the 
deposit of the rope at Surrattsville by the same method that he adopted in ex¬ 
planation of the deposit of this rope, some sixty feet long, found in the carpet- 
sack of Spangler, unaccounted for, save by some evidence which tends to show 
that he may have carried it away from the theater. 

It is not needful to take time in the recapitulation of the evidence, which 
shows conclusively that David E. Harold was one ot these conspirators. His 
continued association with Booth, with Atzeroth, his visits to Mrs. Surratt’s, his 
attendance at the theater with Payne, Surratt, and Atzeroth, his connection with 
Atzeroth on the evening of the murder, riding with him on the street in the di- 


342 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


rection of and near to the theater at the hour appointed for the work of assa? 
sination, and his final flight and arrest, show that he, in common with all tkt> 
other parties on trial, and all the parties named upon your record not upon 
trial, had combined and confederated to kill and murder in the interests of the 
rebellion, as charged and specified against them. 

That this conspiracy was entered into by all these parties, both present and 
absent, is thus proved by the acts, meeetings, declarations, and correspondence 
of all the parties, beyond any doubt whatever. True, it is circumstantial evi¬ 
dence, but the Court will remember the rule before recited that circumstances 
can not lie ; that they are held sufficient in every court where justice is judi¬ 
ciously administered to establish the fact of a conspiracy. 

I shall take no further notice of the remark made by the learned counsel who 
opened for the defense, and which has been followed by several of his associ¬ 
ates, that, under the Constitution, it requires two witnesses to prove tie overt 
act of high treason, than to say, this is not a charge of high treason, I lit of a 
treasonable conspiracy, in aid of a rebellion, with intent to kill and murder the 
Executive officer of the United States, and commander of its armies, and of the 
murder of the President in pursuance of that conspiracy, and with the intent 
laid, &c. Neither by the Constitution, nor by the rules of the common law, is 
any fact connected with this allegation required to be established by the testi¬ 
mony of more than one witness. I might say, however, that every substantive 
averment against each of the parties named upon this record has been estab¬ 
lished by the testimony of more than one witness. 

That the several accused did enter into this conspiracy with John Wilkes 
Booth and John H. Surratt to murder the officers of this Government, named 
upon the record, in pursuance of the wishes of their employers and instigators 
in Richmond and Canada, and with intent thereby to aid the existing rebellion, 
and subvert the Constitution and laws of the United States, as alleged, is no 
longer an open question. 

The intent as said, was expressly declared by Sanders in the meeting of the 
conspirators at Montreal, in February last; by Booth in Virginia and New 
York, and by Thompson to Conover and Montgomery ; but if there were no 
testimony directly upon this point, the law would presume the intent, for the 
reason that such was the natural and necessary tendency and manifest design 
of the act itself. 

The learned gentleman (Mr. Johnson) says the Government has /'nrvived the 
assassination of the President, and thereby" would have you infer that this con¬ 
spiracy was not entered into and attempted to be executed with the intent laid 
With as much show of reason it might be said that because the Government of 
the United States has survived this unmatched rebellion, it therefore results 
that the rebel ^conspirators waged war upon the Government vith no purpose 
or intent thereby to subvert it. By the law we have seen thac without any di¬ 
rect evidence of previous combination and agreement between these parties, 
the conspiracy might be established by evidence of the acts ol the prisoners, or 
ot any others with whom they co-operated, concurring in the execution of the 
common design. (Roscoe, 410.) 

Was there co-operation between the several accused in the execution of this 
conspiracy ? That there was is as dearly established by the testimony as is 
the fact that Abraham Lincoln was killed and murdered by John Wilkes Booth. 
The evidence shows that all of the accused, save Mudd and Arnold, were in 
Washington on the 14th of April, the day of the assassination, together with 
John Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt 5 that on that day Booth had a secret 
interview with the prisoner, Mary E. Surratt 5 that immediately thereafter she 
wont to Surrattsyille to perlorm her part of the preparation necessary to the 
successful execution of the conspiracy, and did make that preparation 5 that 
John II. Surratt had arrived here from Canada, notifying the parties that the 
price to be paid for this great crime had been provided for, at least in part, by 
the deposit receipts of April 6 , for $180,000, procured by Thompson, of the 
Ontario Bank, Montreal Canada ; that he was also prepared to keep watch, or 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


343 


strike a blow, anti ready for the contemplated flight; that Atzeroth on the after¬ 
noon of that day, was seeking to obtain a hoise, the better to secure his own 
safety by flight after he should have performed the task which he had volun¬ 
tarily undertaken by contract, in the conspiracy—the murder of Andrew John¬ 
son, then Vice-President of the United States ; that he did procure a horse for 
that purpose at. Naylor’s, and was seen, about nine o’clock in the evening, to 
ride to the Kirkwood House where the Vice-President then was, dismount and 
enter. 

At a previous hour Booth was in the Kirkwood Plouse ;and left his card, now 
in evidence, doubtless intended to be sent to the room of the Vice-President, 
and was in these words : “Don’t wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. 
YVilkes Booth.” Atzeroth, when he made application at Brooks’in the after¬ 
noon for the horse, said to Weichman, who was there, he was going to ride in 
the country, and that “ he was going to get a horse and send for Payne.” He 
did get a horse for Payne, as well as for himself; for it is proven that on the 
12 th he was seen in Washington, riding the horse which had been procured by 
Booth, in company with Mudd, last November, from Gardner. A similar horse 
was tied before the door of Mr. Seward on the night of the murder, was cap¬ 
tured after the flight of Payne, who was seen to ride away, and which horse is 
now identified as the Gardner horse. Booth also procured a horse on the same 
day, took it to his stable iu the rear of the theater, where he had an interview 
with Spangler, and where he concealed it. Harold, too, obtained a horse in 
the afternoon, and was seen between nine and ten o’clock, riding with Atze¬ 
roth down the Avenue from the Treasury, then up Fourteenth and down F 
street, passing close by Ford's Theater. 

O’Laughlin had come to Washington the day before, had sought out his vic¬ 
tim (General Grant) at the house of the Secretary of War, that he might be able 
with certainty to identify him, and at the very hour when these preparations 
were going on, was lying in wait at Ilullman’s, on the Avenue, ke ‘ping watch, 
and declaring, as he did at about ten o'clock P. M., when told that the fatal 
blow had been struck by Booth, “ I don’t believe Booth did it.” During the 
day, and the night before, he had been visiting Booth, and doubtless encourag¬ 
ing him, and at that very hour was in position, at a convenient distance, “to 
aid and protect him in his flight, as well as to execute his own part of the con¬ 
spiracy by inflicting death upon General Grant, who happily was not at the 
theater, nor in the city, having left the city that day. Who doubts that Booth, 
having ascertained in the course of the day that General Grant could not be 
present at the theater. O’Laughlin, who was to murder General Grant, instead 
of entering the box with Booth, was detailed to lie in wait, and watch and sup¬ 
port him. 

His declarations of his reasons for changing his lodgings here and in Balti¬ 
more, after the murder, so ably, and so ingeniously presented in the argument 
of his learned counsel (Mr. Cox), avail nothing before the blasting fact, that he 
did change his lodgings, and declared “he knew nothing of the affair whatever.” 
O’Laughlin, who lurked here, conspiring daily with Booth and Arnold for six 
weeks to do this murder, declares “ he knew nothing of the affair.” O’Laughlin, 
who says he was “ in the oil business,” which Booth, and Surratt, and Payne, 
and Arnold, have all declared meant this conspiracy, says “ ho knew nothing of 
the affair.” O’Laughlin, to whom Booth sent the despatches of the 13th and 
27th of March ; O’Laughlin, who is named in Arnold’s letter as one of the con¬ 
spirators, and who searched for General Grant on Thursday night, laid in wait 
for him on Friday, was defeated by that Providence “ which shapes our ends,” 
and laid in wait to aid Booth and Payne, declares “ he knew nothing of the mat¬ 
ter.” Such a denial is as false and inexcusable as Peter’s denial of our Lord. 

Mrs. Surratt had arrived at home from the completion of her part of the plot, 
about half-past eight o’clock in the evening. A few moments afterwards she 
was called to the parlor, and there had a private interview with some one un¬ 
seen, but whose retreating footsteps were heard by the witness Weiehman. This 
was doubtless the secret and last visit of John H. Surratt to his mother, who 


844 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


had instigated and encouraged him to strike this traitorous and murderous 
blow against his country. 

While these preparations were going on, Dr. Mudd was awaiting the execu¬ 
tion of the plot, ready faithfully to perform his part in securing the safe escape 
of the murderer. Arnold was at his post at Fortress Monroe, awaiting the 
meeting referred to in his letter of March 27th, wherein he says they were not 
to “meet for a month or so,” which month had more than expired on the day 
of the murder, for the letter and the testimony disclose that this month of sus¬ 
pension began to run from about the first week in March. 

He stood ready with the arms which Booth had furnished him to aid the es¬ 
cape of the murderers by that route, and secure their communication with their 
employers. He had given the assurance in that letter to Booth, that, although 
the Government “suspicioned them” and the undertaking was “becoming 
complicated,” yet “ a time more propitious would arrive” for the consumma¬ 
tion of this conspiracy, in which he “ was one” with Booth, and then he would 
“ be better prepared to again be with him.” 

Such were the preparations. The horses were in readiness for the flight; the 
ropes were procured, doubtless for the purpose of tying the horses at whatever 
point they might be constrained to delay and secure their boats to their moor¬ 
ings in making their way across the Potomac. The five murderous camp- 
knives, the two carbines, the eight revolvers, the Derringer, in Court, and iden¬ 
tified, all were ready for the work of death. The part that each had played 
has already been in part stated in this argument, and needs no repetition. 

Booth proceeded to the theater about nine o’clock in the evening, at the same 
time that Atzeroth, and Payne, and Harold were riding the streets, while Sur¬ 
ratt, having parted with his mother at the brief interview in her parlor, from 
which his retreating steps were heard, was walking the Avenue, booted and 
spurred, and doubtless consulting with O’Laugblin. When Booth reached the 
rear of the theatre, he called Spangler to him (whose denial of that fact, when 
charged with it, as proven by three witnesses, is very significant), and received 
from Spangler his pledge to help him all he could, when with Booth he entered 
the theater by the stage door, doubtless to see that the way was clear from the 
box to the rear door of the theater, and look upon their victim, whose exact 
position they could study from the stage. After this view Booth passes to the 
street, in front of the theater, where on the pavement, with other conspirators 
yet unknown—among them one described as a low-browed villain—he awaits 
the appointed moment. Booth himself, impatient, enters the vestibule of the 
theater from the front, and asks the time. He is referred to the clock, and re¬ 
turns. Presently, as the hour of ten o’clock approached, one of his guilty asso¬ 
ciates called the time ; they wait; again, as the moments elapsed, this conspira¬ 
tor on watch called the time ; again, as the appointed hour draws nigh, he calls 
the time; and finally, when the fatal moment arrives, he repeats in a louder 
tone, “Ten minutes past ten o'clock.” Ten minutes past ten o’clock! The 
hour has come when the red right hand of these murderous conspirators should 
strike, and the dreadful deed of assassination be done. 

Booth, at the appointed moment, entered the theater, ascended to the dress- 
circle, passed to the right, paused a moment, looking down, doubtless to see if 
Spangler was at his post, and approached the outer door of the close passage 
leading to the box occupied by the President; pressed it open, passed in, and 
closed the passage door behind him. Spangler’s bar was in its place, and was 
readily adjusted by Booth in the mortice, and pressed against the inner side of 
the door, so that he was secure from interruption from without. He passes on 
to the next door, immediately behind the President, and there stopping, looks 
through the aperture in the door into the President’s box, and deliberately ob¬ 
serves the precise position of his victim, seated in the chair which had been pre¬ 
pared by the conspirators as the altar for the sacrifice, looking calmly and qui¬ 
etly down upon the glad and grateful people, whom, by li'is fidelity, he had 
saved from peril which had threatened the destruction of their Government, and 
all they held dear this side of the grave, and whom he had come upon invitation 


TRIAL Or* THE ASSASSINS. 


345 


to greet with his presence, with the words still lingering upon his lips which he 
had uttered with uncovered head and uplifted hand before God and his coun¬ 
try, when on the 4th of last March, he took again the oath to preserve, protect, 
and defend the Constitution, declaring that he entered upon the duties of his 
great office, “ with malice toward none, with charity for all.” In a moment 
more, strengthened by the knowledge that his co-conspirators were all at their 
posts, seven at least of them present in the citv, two of them, Mudd and Ar¬ 
nold, at their appointed places, watching for his coming, this hired assassin 
moves stealthily through the door, the fastenings of which had been removed to 
facilitate his entrance, fires upon his victim, and the martyr spirit of Abraham 
Lincoln ascends to God. 

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, 

Malice, domestic, foreign levy, nothing 

Can touch him further. 

At the same hour, when these accused and their co-conspirators in Richmond 
and Canada, by the hand of John Wilkes Booth inflicted this mortal wound 
which deprived the Republic of its defender, and filled this land from ocean to 
ocean with a strange, great sorrow, Payne, a very demon in human form, with 
the words of falsehood upon his lips, that he was the bearer of a message from 
the physician of the venerable Secretary of State, sweeps by his servant, en¬ 
counters his son, who protests that the assassin shall not disturb his father, 
prostrate on a bed of sickness, and receives for answer the assassin's blow from 
the revolver in his hand, repeated again and again, rushes into the room, is en¬ 
countered by Major Seward, inflicts wound after wound upon him with his mur¬ 
derous knife, is encountered by Hansell and Robinson, each of whom he also 
wounds, springs upon the defenseless and feeble Secretary of State, stabs first 
on one side of his throat, then on the other, again in the face, and is only pre¬ 
vented from literally hacking out his life by the persistence and courage of the 
attendant Robinson. He turns to flee, and his giant arm and murderous hand 
for a moment paralyzed by the consciousness of guilt, he drops his weapon of 
death, one in the house, the other at the door, where they were taken up, and 
are here now to bear witness against him. He attempts escape on the horse 
which Booth and Mudd had procured of Gardner, with what success has already 
been stated. 

’ Atzeroth, near midnight, returns to the stable of Naylor the horse which he had 
procured for this work of murder, having been interrupted in the execution of the 
part assigned him at the Kirkwood House by the timely coming of citizens to the 
defence of the Vice-President, and creeps into the Pensylvania House at 2 o’clock 
in the morning with another of the conspirators, yet unknown. There he re¬ 
mained until 5 o’clock, when he left, found his way to Georgetown, pawned one 
of his revolvers, now in Court, and fled northward into Maryland. 

He is traced to Montgomery county, to the house of Mr. Metz, on the Sunday 
succeeding the murder, where, as is proved by the testimony of three witnesses, he 
said that if the man that was to follow General Grant had followed him, it was 
likely that Grant was shot. To one of these witnesses (Mr. Laynian) he said he 
did not think Grant had been killed ; or if he had been killed he was killed by a 
man who got on the cars at the same time that Grant did; thus disclosing most 
clearly that one of his co-conspirators was assigned the task of killing and murder¬ 
ing General Grant, and that Atzeroth knew that General Grant had left the city 
of Washington, a fact which is not disputed, on the Friday evening of the murder, 
by the evening train. Thus this intended victim of the conspiracy escaped, for 
that night, the knives and revolvers of Atzeroth, and O'Laughliu, and Payne, and 
Harold, and Booth, and John H. Surratt, and, perchance, Harper and Caldwell, 
and twenty others who were then here lying in wait for his life. 

In the meantime, Booth and Harold, taking the route before agreed upon, make 
directlv after the assassination for the Anacostia bridge. Booth crosses first, gives 
his name, passes the guard, and is speedily followed by Harold. They make their 
way directly to Surrattsville, where Harold calls to Lloyd, “Bring out those 


346 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


things,” showing that there had been communication between them and Mrs. 
Surratt after her return. Both the carbines being in readiness, according to Mary 
E. Surratt’s directions, both were brought out. They took but one; Booth de¬ 
clined to carry the other, saying that his limb was broken. They then declared 
that they had murdered the President and the Secretary of State. They then 
made their way directly to the house of the prisoner Mudd, assured of safety and 
security. They arrived early in the morning before day, and no man knows at 
what hour they left. Harold rode towards Bryantown with Mudd about three 
o’clock that afternoon, in the vicinity of which place he parted with him, remain¬ 
ing in the swamp, and was afterward seen returning the same afternoon in the di¬ 
rection of Mudd’s house; about which time, a little before sundown, Mudd re¬ 
turned from Bryantown towards his home. 

This village at the time Mudd was in it was thronged with soldiers in pursuit of 
the murderers of the President, and although ;reat care has been taken by the de¬ 
fence to deny that any one said in the presence of Dr. Mudd, either there or else- 
where on that day, who had committed the crime, yet it is in evidence by two 
witnesses whose truthfulness no man questions, that upon Mudd’s return to his 
own house, that afternoon, he stated that Booth was the murderer of the Presi¬ 
dent, and Boyle the murderer of Secretary Seward, but took care to make the 
further remark, that Booth had brothers, and he did not know which of them had 
done the act. When did Dr. Mudd learn that Booth had brothers ? And what 
is still more pertinent to this inquiry, from whom did he learn that either John 
Wilkes Booth or any of his brothers had murdered the President? It is clear that 
Booth remained in his house until some time in the afternoon of Saturday; that 
Harold left the house alone, as one of the witnesses states, being seen to pass the 
window; that he alone of these two assassins was in the company of Dr. Mudd on 
his way to Bryantown. It does not appear when Harold returned to Mudd’s 
house. It is a confession of Dr. Mudd himself, proven by one of the witnesses, 
that Booth left his house on crutches, and went in the direction of the swamp. 

How long he remained there, and what became of the horses which Booth and 
Harold rode to his house, and which were put into his stable, are facts nowhere 
disclosed by the evidence. The owners testily that they have never seen the horses 
since. The accused give no explanation of the matter, and when Harold and 
Booth were captured they had not these horses in their possession. How comes it 
that on Mudd’s return from Bryantown, on the evening of Saturday, in his convei'- 
sation with Mr. Hardy and Mr. Farrell, the witnesses before referred to, he gave 
the name of Booth as the murderer of the President and that of Boyle as the mur¬ 
derer of Secretary Seward and his son, and carefully avoided intimating to either 
that Booth had come to his house early that day and had remained there until the 
afternoon; that he left him in his house and had furnished him with a razor with 
which Booth attempted to disguise himself by shaving off his moustache ? How 
comes it, also, that, upon being asked by those two witnesses whether the Booth 
who killed the President was the one who had been there last fall, he answered 
that he did not know whether it was that man or one of his brothers, but he under¬ 
stood he had some brothers, and added, that if it was the Booth who was there 
last fall, he knew that one, but concealed the fact that this man had been at his 
house on that day and was then at his house, and had attempted, in his presence, 
to disguise his person ? 

He was sorry, very sorry, that the thing had occurred, but not so sorry as to be 
Avilling to give any cdvidence to these two neighbors, who were manifestly honest 
and upright men, that the murderer had been harbored in his house all day, and 
was probably at that moment, as his own subsequent confession shows, lying con¬ 
cealed in his house or near by, subjict to his call. This is the man who undertakes 
to show by his own declaration, offered in evidence against my protest, of what he 
said afterward, on Sunday afternoon, the 16th, to his kinsman, Dr. George D. Mudd 
to whom he then stated that the assassination of the President was a most damn¬ 
able act, a conclusion in which most men will agree with him, and to establish 
which hii testimony was not needed. But it is to be remarked that this accused 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


347 


did not intimate that the man whom he knew the evening before was the mur¬ 
derer had found refuge in his house, had disguised his person, and sought conceal¬ 
ment in the swamp upon the crutches which he had provided for him. 

Why did he conceal this fact from his kinsman ? After the church services were 
over, however, in another conversation on their way home, he did tell Dr. George 
Mudd that two suspicious persons had been at his house, who had come there a 
little before daybreak on Saturday morning; that one of them had a broken leg, 
which he bandaged; that they seemed to be laboring under more excitement than 
probably would result from the injury; that they got something to eat at his 
house ; that they said they came from Bryantown, and inquired the way to Parson 
Wilmer’s; that while at his house one of them called for a razor and shaved 
himself. The witness says: “ I do not remember whether he said that this party 
shaved oft’ his whiskers or moustache, but he altered somewhat or probably materi¬ 
ally his features.” Finally, the prisoner, Dr. Mudd, tokl this witness that he, in 
company with the younger of the two men went down the road toward Bryantown 
in search of a vehicle to take the wounded man away from his house. 

How comes it that he concealed in his conversation the fact proved that he went 
with Harold towards Bryantown, and left Harold outside of the town? How 
comes it that in this second conversation, on Sunday, insisted upon here with such 
pertinacity as evidence for the defence, but which had never been called for by the 
prosecution, he concealed from his kinsman the fact which he had disclosed the 
day before to Hardy and Farrell, that it was Booth who assassinated the President, 
and the fact which is now disclosed by his other confessions given in evidence for 
the prosecution, that it was Booth whom he had sheltered, concealed in his house, 
and aided to his hiding place in the swamp? He volunteers as evidence his 
further statement, however, to this witness, that on Sunday evening he requested 
the witness to state to the military authorities that two suspicious persons had been 
at his house, and see if anything could be made of it. He did not tell the witness 
what became of Harold and where he parted with him on the way to Bryantown. 
How comes it that when he was in Bryantown, on the Saturday evening before, 
when he knew that Booth was then at his house, and that Booth was the murderei 
of the President, he did not himself state it to the military authorities then in that 
village, as he well knew? It is difficult to see what kindled his suspicions on Sun¬ 
day, if none were in his mind on Saturday, when lie was in possession of the fact 
that Booth had murdered the President, and was then secreting and disguising 
himself in the prisoner’s own house. 

His conversation with Gardner on the same Sunday at the church is also intro¬ 
duced here, to relieve him from the overwhelming evidences of his guilt. He 
communicates nothing to Gardner of the fact that Booth had been in his house; 
nothing of the fact that he knew the day before that Booth had murdered the 
President; nothing of the fact that Booth had disguised or attempted to disguise 
himself; nothing of the fact that he had gone with Booth’s associate, Harold, in 
search of a vehicle, the more speedily to expedite their flight; nothing of the fact that 
Booth had found concealment in the woods and swamp near his house, upon the 
crutches which he had furnished him. He contents himself with merely stating 
“that we ought to raise immediately a home guard to hunt up all suspicious per¬ 
sons passing through our section of country, and arrest them, for there were two 
suspicious persons at my house yesterday morning.” 

It would have looked more like aiding justice and arresting felons if he had put 
in execution his project of a home guard on Saturday, and made it effective by 
the arrest of the man then in his house who had lodged with him last fall; with 
whom he had gone to purchase one of the very horses employed in his flight af¬ 
ter the assassination; whom he had visited last winter in Washington, and to 
whom he had pointed out the very route by which he had escaped by way of his 
house; whom he had again visited on the 3d of last March, preparatory to the 
commission of this gi-eat crime ; and who he knew, when he sheltered and con¬ 
cealed him in the woods on Saturday, was not merely a suspicious person, but was, 
in fact, the murderer and assassin of Abraham Lincoln. While I deem it my duty 


348 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


to say here, as I said before, when these declarations, uttered by the accused on 
Sunday, the 16th, to Gardner and George D. Mudd, were attempted to be offered 
on the part of the accused, that they are in no sense evidence, and by the law 
were wholly inadmissible, yet I state it as my conviction, that, being upon the re¬ 
cord upon motion of the accused himself, so far as these declarations to Gardner 
and George D. Mudd go, they are additional indications of the guilt of the accused, 
in this, that they are manifestly suppressions of truth and suggestions of falsehood 
and deception ; they are but the utterances and confessions of guilt. 

To Lieutenant Lovett, Joshua Lloyd and Simon Gavican, who, in the pursuit of 
the murderer, visited his house on the 18th of April, the Tuesday after the mur¬ 
der, he denied positively, upon inquiry, that two men had passed his house, or had 
come to his house on the morning after the assassination. Two of these witnesses 
swear positively to his having made the denial and the other says he hesitated to 
answer the question he put to him; all of them agree that he afterwards admitted 
that two men had been there, one of whom had a broken limb, which he had set; 
and when asked by this witness who that man was, he said he did not know; that 
the man was a stranger to him, and that the two had been there but a short time. 
Lloyd asked him if he had ever seen any of the parties, Booth, Harold and Sur¬ 
ratt; he said that he had never seen them, while it is positively proved that he was 
acquainted with John H. Surratt, who had been in his house; that he knew Booth, 
and had introduced Booth to Surratt last winter. Afterwards, on Friday, the 21st, 
he admitted to Lloyd that he had been introduced to Booth last fall, and that this 
man who came to his house on Saturday, the 15th, remained there from about four 
o’clock in the morning until about four in the afternoon; that one of them left his 
house on horseback, and the other walking. In the first conversation he denied 
ever having seen these men. 

Colonel Wells also testifies that, in his conversation with Dr. Mudd on Friday, 
the 21st, the prisoner said that he had gone to Bryantown, or near Bryantown, to 
see some friends on Saturday, and that as he came back to his own house he saw 
the person he afterwards supposed to be Harold passing to the left of his house to¬ 
wards the barn, but that he did not see the other person at all after he left him in 
his own house, about one o’clock. If this statement be true, how did Dr. Mudd 
see the same person leave his house on crutches ? He further stated to this wit¬ 
ness that he returned to his own house about four o’clock in the afternoon; that he 
did not know this wounded man ; said he could not recognize him from the pho¬ 
tograph which is of record here, but admitted that he had met Booth some time 
in November, when he had some conversation with him about lands and horses; 
that Booth had remained with him that night in November, and on the next day 
had purchased a horse. He said he had not again seen Booth from the time of the 
introduction in November up to his arrival at his house on the Saturday morning 
after the assassination. Is not this a confession that he did see John Wilkes Booth 
on that morning at his house, and knew it was Booth? If lie did not know him, 
how came he to make this statement to the witness “that he had not seen Booth 
after November prior to his arrival there on the Saturday morning?” 

He had said before to the same witness he did not know the wounded man. He 
said further to Colonel Wells, that when lie went up stairs after their arrival, he 
noticed that the person he supposed to be Booth, had shaved off his moustache. 
It is not inferrable from this declaration that he then supposed him to be Booth ? 
Yet he declared the same afternoon, and while Booth was in his own house, that 
Booth was the murderer of the President. One of the most remarkable statements 
made to this witness by the prisoner was that he heard for the first time on Sunday 
morning, or late in the evening of Saturday, that the President had been murder¬ 
ed. From whom did he hear it? The witness (Colonel Wells) volunteered his 
11 impression ” that Dr. Mudd had said lie had heard it after the person had left his 
house. If the “ impression ” of the witness thus volunteered is to be taken as evi¬ 
dence, and the counsel for the accused, judging from their manner, seem to think 
it ought to be, let this question be answered, how could Dr. Mudd have made that 
impression upon any body truthfully, when it is proved by Farrell and Hardy that 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


349 


on his return from Bryantown, on Saturday afternoon, he not only stated that the 
President, Mr. Seward and his son had been assassinated, but that Bovle had as¬ 
sassinated Mr. Seward, and Booth had assassinated the President ? Add to this 
the fact that he said to this witness that he left his own house at one o’clock, and 
when he returned the men were gone ; yet it is in evidence, by his own declara¬ 
tions, that Booth left his house at four o’clock on crutches, and he must have been 
there to have seen it, or he could not have known the fact. 

Mr. Williams testified that he was at Mudd’s house on Tuesday, the 18th of 
April, when he said that strangers had not been that way, and also declared that he 
heard, for the first time, of the assassination of the President on Sunday morning, 
at church; afterwards, on Friday, the 21st, Mr. Williams asked him concerning 
the men who had been at his house, one of whom had a broken limb, and he con¬ 
fessed they had been there. Upon being asked if they were Booth and Harold, he 
said they were not; that he knew Booth. I think it Is fair to conclude that he did 
know Booth, when we consider the testimony of Weichman, of Norton, of Evans, 
and all the testimony just referred to, wherein he declares, himself, that he not 
only knew him, but that he had lodged with him, and that he had himself gone 
with him when he purchased his horse from Gardener last fall, for the very pur¬ 
pose of aiding the flight of himself, or, some of his confederates. 

All these circumstances taken together, which, as we have seen upon high au¬ 
thority, are stronger as evidence of guilt than even direct testimony, leave no 
further room for argument, and no rational doubt that Doctor Samuel A. Mudd 
was as certainly in this conspiracy as were Booth and Harold, whom he sheltered 
and entertained; receiving them under cover of darkness on the morning after the 
assassination, concealin them throughout that day from the hand of offended justice 
and aiding them by every endeavor, to pursue their way successfully to their co-con¬ 
spirator, Arnold, at Fortress Monroe, and in which direction he fled until over¬ 
taken and slain. 

We next find Harold and his confederate, Booth, after their departure from 
the house of Mudd, across the Potomac, in the neighborhood of Port Conway, on 
Monday the 24th of April, conveyed in a wagon. There Harold, in order to ob¬ 
tain the aid of Capt. Jett, Buggies and Bainbridge, of the confederate army, said 
to Jett, “We are the assassinators of the President;” that this was his brother 
with him, who, with himself, belonged to A. P. Hill’s Corps; that his brother had 
been wounded at Petersburg; that their names were Boyd. He requested Jett 
and his rebel companions to t*.ike them out of the lines. After this, Booth joined 
these parties, was placed on Buggies’ horse, and crossed the Bappahannock river. 

They then proceeded to the house of Garrett, in the neighborhood of Port Boy- 
al, and nearly midway between Washington City and Fortress Monroe, where 
they were to have joined Arnold. Before these Bebel guides and guards parted 
with them, Harold confessed that they were traveling under assumed names; that 
his own name was Harold, and that the name of the wounded man was John 
Wilkes Booth, “who had killed the President.” The Bebels left Booth at Gar¬ 
rett’s where Harold revisited him from time to time, until they were captured. At 
two o’clock on Wednesday morning, the 26th, a party of United States officers and 
soldiers surrounded Garrett’s barn, where Booth and Harold lay concealed, and de¬ 
manded their surrender. Booth cursed Harold, calling him a coward, and bade 
him go, when Harold came out and surrendered himself, was taken into custody, 
and is now brought into Court. The barn was then set on fire, when Booth 
sprang to his feet, amid the flames that were kindling about him, carbine in hand, 
and approached the door, seeking, by the flashing light of the fire, to find some 
new victim for his murderous hand, when he was shot, as he deserved to be, by 
Sergeant Corbett, in order to save his comrades from wounds or death by the hands 
of this- desperate assassin. Upon his person was found the following bill of ex¬ 
change ; 

“ No. 1492. The Ontario Bank, Montreal Branch Exchange for £61 12s. lOd. 
Montreal, 27th October, 1864. Sixty days after sight of this first of exchange, 
second and third of the same tenor and date, pay to the order of J. Wilkes Booth 


350 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


£61 12 s. 10(1. sterling, value received, and charge to the account of this office. H. 
Stanus," manager. To Messrs. Glynn, Mills & Co., London.” 

Thus fell, by the hands of one of the defenders of the Republic, this hired assas¬ 
sin, who, for a price, murdered Abraham Lincoln, bearing upon his person, as this 
bill of exchange testifies, additional evidence of the fact that he had undertaken, 
in aid of rebellion, this work of assination by the hands of himself and his confede¬ 
rates, for such sum as the accredited agents of Jefferson Davis might pay him or 
them, out of the funds of the Confederacy, which, as in evidence, they had in 
“any amount” in Canada for the purpose of rewarding conspirators, spies, poison¬ 
ers and assassins, who might take service under their false commissions, and do 
the work of the incendiary and the murderer upon the lawful representatives of the 
American people, to whom had been entrusted the care of the Republic, the main¬ 
tenance of the Constitution and the execution of the laws. 

The Court will remember that it is in the testimony of .Merritt, and Montgome¬ 
ry, and Conover, that Thompson, and Sanders, and Clay, and Cleary, made their 
boasts that they had money in Canada for this very purpose. Nor is it to be over¬ 
looked or forgotten that the officers of the Ontario Bank at Montreal testify that 
during the current year of this conspiracy and assassination Jacob Thompson had 
on deposit in that bank the sum of six hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars, 
and that these deposits to the credit of Jacob Thompson, accrued from the nego¬ 
tiations of bills of exchange drawn by the Secretary ot the Treasury of the so-called 
Confederate States on Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool, who were known to 
be the financial agents of the Confederate States. With an undrawn deposit in 
this bank of four hundred and fifty-five dollars, which has remained to his credit 
since October last, and with an unpaid bill of exchange drawn by the same bank 
upon London, in his possession and found upon his person, Booth ends his guilty 
career in this work of conspiracy and blood in April, 1865, as he began it in Octo¬ 
ber, 1864, in combination with Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson, George N. San¬ 
ders, Clement C. Clay, William C. Cleary, Beverly Tucker and other co-conspira¬ 
tors, making use of the money of the Rebel Confederation to aid in the execution 
and in the flight, bearing at the moment of his death upon his person their money, 
part of the price which they paid for his great crime, to aid him in its consumma¬ 
tion, and secure him afterwards from arrest and the just penalty which by the law 
of God and the law of man is denounced against treasonable conspiracy and murder. 

By all the testimony in the case, it is, in my judgment, made as clear as any 
transaction can be shown by human testimony, that John Wilkes Booth and 
John II. Surratt, and the several accused. David E. Harold, George A. Atzeroth, 
Lewis Payne, Michael O’Loughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. 
Surratt, and Samuel A. Mudd, did, with the intent to aid the existing rebellion 
and to subvert the Constitution and laws of the United States, in the month of 
October last, and thereafter, combine, confederate and conspire with Jefferson 
Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, 
Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, to kill 
and murder, within the military department of Washington, and within the in¬ 
trenched fortifications and military lines thereof, Abraham Lincoln, then Presi¬ 
dent of the United States, and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy there¬ 
of ; Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United States, William H. Seward, 
Secretary of State, and Ulysses S. Grant, Lieutenant-General in command of 
the armies of the United States ; and that Jefferson Davis, the chief of this rebel¬ 
lion, was the instigator and procurer, through his accredited agents in Canada, 
of the treasonable conspiracy. 

It is also submitted to the Court that it is clearly established by the testimo¬ 
ny that John Wilkes Booth in pursuance of this conspiracy, so entered into by 
him and the accused, did, on the night of the 14th of AjWil, 1865, within the 
military department of Washington, and the intrenched fortifications and mili¬ 
tary lines thereof, and with the intent laid, inflict a mortal wound upon Abra¬ 
ham Lincoln, then President and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of 
the United States, whereof he died ; that in pursuance of the same conspiracy 


TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS. 


351 


and •within the said department and intrenched lines, Lewis Payne assaulted, 
with intent to kill and murder, William II. Seward, then Secretary of State of 
the United States ; that George A. Atzeroth , in pursuance of the same conspir¬ 
acy. and within the said department, laid in wait, with intent to kill and mur¬ 
der Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of the United States; that Michael 
O’Laughlin, within said department, and in pursuance of said conspiracy, laid 
in wait to kill and murder Ulysses S. Grant, then in command of the armies of 
the United States ; and that Mary E. Surratt, David E. Harold, Samuel Arnold, 
Samuel A. Mudd, and Edward Spangler, did encourage, aid and abet the com¬ 
mission of said several acts in ihe prosecution of said conspiracy. 

If this treasonable conspiracy has not been wholly executed ; if the several 
executive officers of the United States and the commander of its armies, to kill 
and murder whom the said several accused thus confederated and conspired, 
have not each and all fallen by the hands of these conspirators, thereby leaving 
the people of the United States without a President, or Vice-President; without 
a Secretary of State, who alone is clothed with authority by the law to call an 
Election to fill the vacancy, should any arise, in the offices of President and 
Vice-President, and without a lawful commander of the armies of the Republic, 
it is only because the conspirators were deterred by the vigilance and fidelity 
of the executive officers, whose lives were mercifully protected on that night of 
murder by the care of the Infinite Being, who has thus far saved the Republic 
and crowned its arms with victory. 

If this conspiracy was thus entered into by the accused ; if John Wilkes Booth 
did kill and murder Abraham Lincoln in pursuance thereof; if Lewis Payne did 
in pursuance of said conspiracy, assault with intent to kill and murder William 
H. Seward, as stated ; and if the several parties accused did commit the several 
acts alleged against them in the prosecution of said conspiracy, then it is the 
law that ail the parties to that conspiracy, whether present at the time of its ex¬ 
ecution or not, whether on trial before this Court or not, are alike guilty of the 
several acts done by each in the execution of the common design. What these 
conspirators did in the execution of this conspiracy by the hand of one of their 
co-conspirators, they did themselves; his act, done in the prosecution of the 
common design, was the act of all the parties to the treasonable combination, 
because done in execution and furtherance of their guilty and treasonable 
agreement. 

As we have seen, this is the rule, whether all the conspirators are indicted 
or not ; whether they are all on trial or not. “ It is not material what the na¬ 
ture of the indictment is, provided the offence involve a conspiracy. Upon in¬ 
dictment for murder, for instance, if it appears that others, together with the 
prisoner, conspired to perpetrate the crime, the act of one done in pursuance of 
that intention, would be evidence against the rest.” (I Whar., TOti.) To the 
same effect are the words of Chief Justice Marshall, before cited, that whoever 
leagued in a general conspiracy, performed any part, however minute, or how¬ 
ever remote from the scene of action, are guilty as principals. In this treason¬ 
able conspiracy, to aid the existing armed rebellion, by murdering the execu¬ 
tive officers of the United States and the commander of its armies, all the par¬ 
ties to it must be held as principals, and the act of one, in prosecution of the 
common design, the act of all. 

I leave the decision of this dread issue with the Court, to which alone it be¬ 
longs. It is for you to say, upon your oaths, whether the accused are guilty. 

I am not conscious that in this argument I have made any erroneous statement 
of the evidence, or drawn any erroneous conclusions ; yeti pray the Court, out 
of tender regard and jealous care for the right of the accused, to see that no 
error of mine, if any there be, shall work them harm. The past services of the 
members of this honorable Court give assurance that, without fear, favor, or 
affection, they will discharge with fidelitv the duty enjoined upon them by 
their oaths. Whatever else may befall, I trust in God that in this, as in every 
other American Court, the rights of the whole people will be respected, and 
that the Republic in this, its supreme hour of trial, will be true to itself and 


352 


GLANCES AT ASSASSINATIONS 


just to all—ready to protect the rights of the humblest, to redress every wrong, 
to avenge every crime, to vindicate the majesty of law, and to maintain in¬ 
violate the Constitution—whether it be secretly or openly assailed by hosts, 
armed with gold, or armed with steel. JOHN A. BINGHAM, 

Special Judge Advocate. 

President Johnson’s Affroval. 

And Whereas, The President of the United States has approved the foregoing 
sentences in the following order, to wit:— 

Executive Mansion, July 5, 1865.—The foregoing sentences in the cases of 
David E. Harold, G. A. Atzeroth, Lewis Payne, and Mary E. Surratt, be carried 
into execution by the proper military authority, under the direction of the Sec¬ 
retary of War, on the 7th day of July, 1865, between the hours of 10 o’clock 
A. M. and 2 o’clock P. M. of that day. (Signed) 

Andrew Johnson, President. 

j Therefore you are hereby commanded to cause the foregoing sentences in the 
cases of David E. Harold, G. A. Atzeroth, Lewis Payne, and Mary E. Surratt, to 
be duly executed, in accordance with the President’s order. 

By command of the President of the United States. 

E. D. Townsend, 
Assistant Adjutant-General. 

Dr. Mudd, Arnold, and O’Laughlin, are to be imprisoned for life, and Span¬ 
gler for six years, all at hard labor, in the Dry Tortugas. 

Thus ended the career of one of the noblest of earth. His name in all 
future time will make the advocates of slavery and oppression blush, and 
furnish a bulwark behind which the friends of freedom can forever dwell 
secure. Endeared to the American people by his patriotic devotion to 
his country while living, he has, by the hand of the cowardly assassin, 
become doubly sanctified by his untimely death. No one in the long list 
of names in the world’s great history, except Jesus, will ever eclipse him. 
Darius, Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon, were great; but their greatness 
was not the result of goodness, and will never compare with the mighty 
achievements of a Washington, who, by seven long years of gigantic 
strife, wrested a continent from the grasp of despots ; or a Lincoln, who 
through fire and blood has preserved it undivided for his (nuintrymen, 
and in justice to mankind has made it forever free. 


Glances at Assassinations of Distinguished Persons in other Coun¬ 
tries : Especially of those Wielding Political Power. 

Anxious as men are to win power, how few of those who win it, do 
not afterwards exclaim with the English king—“ uneasy lies the head 
that wears a crown.” How few monarchs, and mighty men of the earth 
have slept as sound after their elevation, as they did before ! The solu¬ 
tion of the question is found in the fact, that assassination or violent death 
in some form for such individuals, seems to be the rule, and not the ex- 



OP DISTINGUISHED PERSONS. 


353 


ception. Greatness in public life, whether achieved or inherited, is a 
dangerous thing. 

To give even a faint idea to the unlettered man of the host of distin¬ 
guished persons who have been murdered while sitting in seats of power, 
would be difficult—but to convince the mass of mankind, not only of the 
number of such victims, but of the endless plots, cjnspiracies, and ma¬ 
chinery by which this vast army of the illustrious have been hurried to 
their tombs, would be an utter impossibility. The best historians even, 
do not know, and never have, of but a small part of the number of the 
men and women in high stations who have been foully killed, by slow or 
quick poison, the dagger, the bullet, drowning, starvation, suffocation, 
long imprisonment, confinement in private mad-houses, buried alive, the 
rope, the cord, the bowstring, hurled from precipices, frightened to 
death—and God knows how many hundred other modes by which the 
souls of men have by assassination been forced out of this world with all 
its light, and love, and beauty, into the dark, and drear unknown! 

Among 'public assassinations, perhaps the two most illustrious are 
Casar and Lincoln, performed by individuals as instruments of deep con. 
spiracies. 

Among public assassinations performed by State governments—and 
their name is legion—we find Jesus of Nazareth and half a million of his 
disciples the most sacred of all, stretching through the ages, like a vast 
serpent line, black with all crime, and fringed with murder blood. 

There was Anne Boleyn, and Lady Jane Gray, and Mary Queen of 
Scots, and Maria Antoinette. There was John of Prague, and Huss, and 
Wickliffe,—Charles the II.—Louis XVI.—and all that line. But the great 
roll would consist in secret assassinations. Most of the chief Rulers of 
great empires have been dispatched in secret. Nearly all the emperors 
of the old dynasties of Egypt and Asia and Rome died by the hands of 
assagsins. So of Russia and other great states. 

It is a curious fact, however, that so large a number of the victims of 
assassin conspiracy have been good men. Attempts to kill tyrants have 
generally failed—they have been safe ; for bad men like tyrants because 
tyrants are their friends, and bad men do not kill them. Tyrants are 
not exposed to murder from good men, because good men are not assas¬ 
sins. Good men had rather suffer a while longer and wait for the retri¬ 
bution which God is sure, sooner or later, to meet out to the wrong¬ 
doers of the earth. 

If anything like a full record of the annals of assassination should be 
written, it would fill a library. We select only a few striking cases, and 
they are all political murders. —murders for empire —for power. 

Napoleon Bonaparte had no child by Josephine, his first wife, and for 
this reason he discarded her and married Maria Louisa, an Austrian 


354 


GLANCES AT ASSASSINATIONS 


Bourbon Princess—the greatest mistake of his life. By this union, 
a son was born who was proclaimed “ king of Rome.” “Napo¬ 
leon II”.-On the fall of his father, and his banishment to St. He¬ 

lena, Austria claimed the custody of this boy ; and he was transferred 
to Vienna, where he was kept as an instrument of State , to be used for 
political purposes. He was the first legitimate heir to the throne of 
Napoleon if the Bonapartes were again to rule France :—and having the 
royal blood of the Austrian House in his veins, he also shared in that 
imperial inheritance ; so he could be kept a tenant at the will of Austria ; 
and he was. He could live as long as needed—he could die in a second 
when necessary—or he could live a lingering death by being made an 
imbecile. The latter was his fate. When Europe sunk back to its re¬ 
pose, and the “ Holy Alliance” had settled the map of empires, kingdoms, 
and principalities, and all the ships of state were sailing in clear water, 
the time came to get rid of this heir to the throne of Napoleon, for he 
was no longer needed. 

It then became a question only of how to dispatch him. Austria could 
perpetrate any crime :—but in the case of this young man, who had en¬ 
deared himself to all the court, and all his attendants, violence was not 
resorted to ; it was not necessary. 

But he must be got rid of. How? They could kill him with luxury — 
murder him with perfumes, as Sultans: and other Oriental lovers get rid of 
rejected mistresses. They could not make him drink himself to death, 
and so they invoked other fascinations. Fanny Essler had just enchant¬ 
ed the European world. She was sent for. The king of Rome’s doom 
was sealed. He died the death of an Oriental satrap. His bier was a 
bed of roses—a fate worthy of Sardinipalus. 

Thus came this imperial son of the great Napoleon to his doom. But 

his cousin Louis Napoleon avenged his death on the field of Solferino_ 

and Austria will yet pay still dearer for her crime. The Napoleon dy¬ 
nasty still lives—the Bourbons are dying. The first belong to the present 
at least—the latter to the past. 

It is hardly necessary to give any recital of the murder of the young 
princes in the Tower of London. We remember from our childhood 
this heartless tragedy. W e turn to look for a moment at a few illustra¬ 
tions in point, with which common readers may be less familiar. 

Assassination prevailed to a dreadful extent during the Middle Ages, 
especially in Italy. The standard of honor and morality in that country, 
and even in Rome itself, the capital of Christendom, was lower than it 
was in the most degenerate days of the later Caesars. Private murders 
were more frequently resorted to, especially among Princes, and the up¬ 
per classes. 

The history of the Borgia family is crimsoned with blood on every 



OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS. 


355 


page. Pope Alexander YI., the father of the infamous Cassar Borgia, re¬ 
sorted to assassination whenever it suited his ambitious purposes ; and 
the record of no barbarian Prince is more horrible and revolting than the 
history of this ambitious and heartless Pontiff. 

But the crimes of his son exceeded, if possible, those of his father in 
their atrocity, enormity and extent. This chiefest villain of all the ages, 
being the son of a Pope who was supreme lord and sovereign of Rome 
and vicegerant of God Almighty, was clothed with great authority, made 
rich by robbery, and could perpetrate any crime with impunity. He 
was made a cardinal; the Duchy of Valentino was stolen from its right¬ 
ful owner and given to Borgia who had already inaugurated a series of 
the most frightful crimes ever written in the history of a single indi¬ 
vidual. His ambition was to become king of Italy, which at that time 
would, with the all powerful alliance and sanction of the Church of Rome, 
render the king of Italy the most powerful sovereign of Europe. 

With his eye fixed on such a throne Borgia hesitated at no crime. He 
first plotted and secured the death of several of the richest cardinals and 
noblemen of Rome and thus enriched himself. He then made open war 
upon neighboring princes—defeating their armies in the field, and im¬ 
prisoning and murdering their masters. When he could not get them into 
his hands, he employed their confidential friends and attendants to mur¬ 
der them in their castles. But as this could not always be done, he re¬ 
sorted to a final plot by which he could get rid of them all at once. He 
proposed a convention for agreeing on the terms of a general and perma¬ 
nent peace. The rival princes all met Caesar Borgia at one of his cas¬ 
tles at the appointed time, when they were foully assassinated in a few 
moments. His assassinations were endless. His means and instruments 
exceeded in number, forms, and subtleties, all knowledge or comprehen¬ 
sion. He had only to will the death of any person in Italy, or any part of 
Europe, and that man, or woman, or child, died. Poison in wines, in all 
kinds of food, in clothing, in flowers and perfumes, in letters, in pres¬ 
ents, in the atmosphere where one breath drawn was instant death.—In 
stiletos, hidden springs of poisoned steel which in grasping a hand in¬ 
fused the deadly poison :—in violent murder—in any of the countless 
forms in which the subtle genius of chemists, artists, and diplomatists 
could be used by the superior, infernal genius of that prince of all assas¬ 
sins— Caesar Borgia. 

ATTEMPTED POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS SINCE 1850. 

From the Unita Catoltca. 

* 1 Queen Victoria can count four attempts on her life. On June 28, 
1850, she received a violent blow with a stick from one Robert Pate, a 
retired lieutenant of the Tenth Hussars. 


356 


GLANCES AT ASSASSINATIONS. 


“ In May, 1850, the late King of Prussia received, as he was mounting 
a railway carriage, a shot from a holster pistol of large bore in the fore¬ 
arm ; the assassin, Sefelage, of Wetzflow, cried out as he fired, ‘ Liberty 
for ever.’ The life of the present King of Prussia was in danger at Ba¬ 
den, on the morning of July 14, 1861. Two pistol shots were fired at 
him by Oscar Becker, a law student of Leipsic, The regicide declared 
that he wished to kill the King because he was not capable of effecting 
the unity of Germany. 

“ On February 18, 1853, at Vienna, Francis Joseph I. was struck with 
a knife in the nape of the neck. The murderer’s name was Libeny, of 
Albe, in Hungary, aged 20, resident at Vienna, and a tailor by trade. 

“ On March 20, 1854, Ferdinand Charles III. Duke of Parma, returning 
from an excursion, was hustled by an individual who at the same time 
stabbed him in the abdomen, left the poignard in the wound, and subse¬ 
quently escaped. The Duke expired in cruel torture at the end of twenty- 
three hours. 

“ On May 28, 1856, as Queen Isabella was passing in her carriage 
along the Rue de l’Arsenal at Madrid, a young man, named Raymond 
Fuentes drew a pistol from his pocket, and would have discharged it at 
her head had not his arm been caught, and his weapon taken from him 
by an agent of the police. 

“ On December 8,1856, whilst Ferdinand II. was reviewing his troops 
at Naples, a soldier, named Agesiras Milano struck him with his bayonet, 
and, at a later period, Garibaldi honored the memory of the regicide. 

“ In October, 1852, when Napoleon III., who was on the eve of becom¬ 
ing Emperor was at Marseilles, there had been prepared an infernal ma¬ 
chine, formed by two hundred and fifty gun-barrels charged with fifteen 
hundred balls, intended to go off all at once against the Prince and his 
cortege. But the attempt was not carried out. July 5, 1853, a fresh at¬ 
tempt was made to assassinate him as he was going to the Opera Coinique. 
Twelve Frenchmen were arrested as being concerned in the conspiracy. 
On April 28, 1855, Jean Liverani fired two shots at the Emperor in the 
Grande avenue of the Champs Elysees. In 1857, Thibaldi, Bartolott.i and 
Grilli came from England to Paris to assassinate the Emperor, but were 
discovered, arrested, tried and punished. On January 14, 1858, Orsini, 
Gomes, Pieri and Rudio, threw their murderous shells at the Emperor of 
the French and shed the blood of a great number of honest citizens in 
Paris. On December 24, 1863, Greco, Trabucco, Imperatore and Sca- 
glioni, who had come over from London, with the intention of killing the 
French Emperor, were arrested in Paris. 

“ In September 18, 1862, the Queen of Greece, directing public affairs 
during the king’s absence, was returning from a ride on horseback, when 
she was fired at without effect, near the palace, by Aristide Donsios, a 
student, aged nineteen years. 

“ In 1858 an attempt was made on the life of Victor Emmanuel II., and 
Count Cavour gave an account of it in the sitting of April 16.” 


TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 


Remember our country can only become weak when it re¬ 
fuses to do right. Let justice be done to the people who, 
during long years of rebellion in the rebel territory alone, 
amidst unfaithfulness and foul treachery remained loyal and 
true, scorning the treason of their traitorous masters, and re¬ 
fusing to participate in their country’s ruin : on countless 
bloody battle fields sharing bravery and danger with the 
white race, aiding to secure victory by freely pouring out 
their blood to vindicate the national authority, and uphold the 
honor of its flag. While swift to pardon the national enemies, 
let it not be said of those in authority that they are uugrate- 
ful to its most devoted friends. 


CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY, AND OATH OF LOYALTY FOR 
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. 

We take it for granted the Constitutional Amendment Abolishing 
Slavery, will be ratified by twenty-eight States; already twenty-four 
have recorded their votes in the affirmitive, as follows: 


ratifications. 


Illinois, Feb. 1, 1865. 

Rhode Island, Feb. 2, 1865. 
Maryland, Feb. 3, 1865. 
Massachusetts, Feb. 3, 1865. 
New York, Feb. 3, 1865. 
Pennsylvania, Feb. 3, 1865. 
West Virginia, Feb. 3, 1865. 
Michigan, Feb. 4, 1865. 
Maine, Feb. 7, 1865. 

Ohio, Feb. 8, 1865. 

Kansas, Feb. 8, 1865. 
Minnesota, Feb. 8, 1865. 


East Virginia, Feb. 9, 1865, 
Indiana, Feb. 13, 1865. 

Nevada, Feb. 16, 1865. 
Louisiana, Feb. 17, 1865. 
Missouri, Feb. 24, 1865. 
Wisconsin, Feb. 24, 1865. 
Vermont, March 9, 4S65. 
Tennessee, April 5, 1865. 
Arkansas, April —, 1865. 
Connecticut, May 4, 1865. 
Iowa, June 30, 1865. 

New Hampshire, June 30, 1865. 


rejections. 

Delaware, Feb. 8, 1865. New”Jersey, March 1, 1865. 

Kentucky, Feb. 23. 1865. 


We expect to see not only the number required by the Constitution, 
but we believe all the States will endorse and ratify it. 



358 


CONCLUSION. 


The Diffiouly to Southern Members of Congress.— In July, 1863, a 
law was passed by Congress requiring the following oath of “ every per¬ 
son elected or appointed to any office of honor or emolument, civil, mili¬ 
tary or naval, or any other department of the public service, except the 
President of the United States,” to wit: 

I solemnly swear that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United 
States since I have been a citizen thereof, that I have voluntarily given no aid, 
countenance, counsel or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility 
thereto; that I have neither sought or accepted, nor attempted to exercise the func¬ 
tions of any office whatever under any authority or pretended authority in hostility 
to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended 
government, authority, power or constitution within the United States hostile or 
inimical thereto; and I do further swear that, to the best of my knowledge and 
ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, &c. 

This is the oath demanded from the members of the last Congress, and 
which the members of the new Congress will likely be compelled to take. 

In matters concerning ourselves, our kindred, our dear friends and our 
neighbors, it is consoling, it is sweet to feel we have in all things done 
right. 

But how much more the responsibility when millions of the human 
family have confided in the judgment, and placed in the hands of one 
man the sacred trust of preserving their lives, their liberties and their 
earthly all. Every President has this great boon in his keeping ; it is a 
responsible position, a holy trust; he, who through wisdom and pure 
motives acts justly to all, will receive the heartfelt gratitude of the pres¬ 
ent and coming generations, and when the evening of life gathers softly 
round his dying bed, how happy to know and feel that he has done all 
things well 

“Only actions of the just 
Smell sweet in life, 

And blossom in the dust.” 

President Johnson has the most difficult task to perform of any Presi¬ 
dent since the origin of the government. He can only succeed by the 
aid of divine providence. The war is over, to be sure, but the discord¬ 
ant political elements remain to be harmonized. In this condition justice 
only will secure harmony. Every side of the reconstruction question ap¬ 
pears to be surrounded with difficulty. On the one side you are met by 
downright injustice, backed by ignorance, and supported by prejudice 
against color. The treacherous ex-slaveholder could never permit the 
freedman to exercise the right of suffrage. He has not only got this 
feeling himself, but he has imparted it in a great measure to his poor 
white neighbor, whom slavery has degraded and impoverished. This 
then shows the feelings of nearly all the white race living in the South 
concerning the negroes. 


CONCLUSION. 


359 


When the white masters owned them, interest prompted kindness and 
care ; but now, when the«negro has his freedom, he is looked upon as 
taking a step in the direction of rivaling the master in his right to vote. 
The poor white man who is ignorant of nearly everything, except hatred 
to the negro, now sees in him a new rival in political rights. 

Some of these unreasonable and unjust prejudices will have to be 
thrown aside, or new troubles will rise in the future that will prove dis¬ 
astrous to the peace and well being of the South, and the Country. The 
northern people have been voting against the negro for over eighty years ; 
of course the slaves were not allowed to vote directly, but indirectly. 
The South, under the three-fifth clause of the Constitution, according to 
the last census, would be entitled to a slave representation of about 
2,400,000 persons, that is, 4,000,000 of blacks have the same legal rep¬ 
resentative strength as if 2,400,000 white citizens were added to its pop¬ 
ulation, the South being entitled to eighty-four representatives,; eigh¬ 
teen of their number hold their office by virtue of the negro population, 
guaranteed by the three-fifth clause in the Constitution. As we before 
said, the negroes did not vote directly, but for President and members of 
the lower house of Congress, eighty white votes in the slave States being 
equivalent to one hundred in the free States. Suppose there were no 
blacks in the Southern States, who would agree to a system of political 
juggling that would strip the people of the free States of their manhood 
by counting every eighty southern votes as equivalent to every one 
hundred in the Northern States. 

This is the political coat of mail the Constitution furnished to the slave 
oligarchy for over three-quarters of a century. Feeling more than secure 
in the aforesaid political attitude, they became arrogant and domineering, 
and in the attempt to rid themselves of their connection with free insti¬ 
tutions, lost the twenty per cent, advantage given them by the injustice 
of the Constitution. And now, after four years of devastating war, 
inaugurated by their own ignorance and folly, they come out of the 
bloody contest minus their political superfluities. 

Every citizen of the free States should recollect this, and demand that 
under no pretext will this unjust advantage ever again be acquiesced in, 
no matter how fine the politicians may attempt to play it in reconstruc¬ 
tion of the rebel States. It must be exposed and defeated. One hundred 
votes in the North must be equivalent to one hundred votes in the South. 
Justice to the voters in all the States require this to be done. Men 
having such political advantages showered on their unworthy heads 
under the government before the war, being defeated in battle by the 
superior ability of the federal commanders, and daring bravery and cour¬ 
age of the men, will now resort to intrigue with honied tongues, unmean¬ 
ing oaths and fair promises : they will endeavor to again wriggle them- 


360 


CONCLUSION. 


selves into position, so as to control elections and infuse deadly poison 
into every just and humane principle which, i», reaping the fruits of vic¬ 
tory, the wise and good adopt as a means to cement the Union and se¬ 
cure its perpetuity. The man who pays tax, be he black or white, must 
be allowed the right of suffrage, or his excuse for rebelling against in¬ 
justice is the same as our revolutionary fathers had against Great Britain. 

If the rebel States are left to themselves to reorganize, the leaders of 
the late rebellion will become masters of the field. It is safe to count 
them as eighty in every hundred of the white population. They hate 
every white man that holds Union sentiments, and every negro because 
the Union made him free. 

The reader can now observe some of the difficulties that lie in the way 
of harmonizing the new relations created by the war in the South. The 
disappointed, defeated and disgraced rebels will do all in their power 
to prevent a good feeling between the loyal whites and freedmen of the 
South. 

There is one way to arrange this troublesome question. Let loyalists, 
black and white, who fought and saved the country by pouring out their 
blood, now act together and keep down treason and crush out the vin¬ 
dictive injustice that takes the place of slavery. 

It is safe to say that one half the voting population of the South have 
fallen in battle, gone to Mexico or Europe, or become disqualified to vote 
by the proclamation of the President. From what is left take twenty per 
cent, as Loyal, add to them the loyal freedman’s vote and you have suffi¬ 
cient to overcome by constitutional means the votes of the disloyal ene¬ 
mies of the Federal Government. Those at the helm of state must make 
sure that its friends, not enemies, get control of the reconstructing rebel 
States. Here is one trouble that will arise from not allowing the freed¬ 
men to vote. The Constitution of the United States bases representation 
on the whole number of free population ; this is as it should be, it is repub¬ 
lican. Suppose the 4,000,000 slaves now made free in the Southern States 
are denied the right to vote for the Government, they poured out their 
blood to save. Then the whites of the South would be allowed by the 
Constitution to use these 4,000,000 of freedmen as a representative basis 
and vote on the strength of their numbers for President and representa¬ 
tives. Now the Constitution gave the whites of the South during slave¬ 
ry, the advantage of counting the blacks by the three fifth rule. 

The slaves being now free, if they are not allowed to vote, either a 
few loyal or purjured disloyal whites, or both combined, have the Con¬ 
stitutional right to vote for them. Will the people of the United States 
suffer this after-birth of slavery to be dragged into the new order, to per¬ 
petuate power when the three-fifth rule has become obsolete? Under this 
state of things the new order would increase, instead of diminish the po- 


CONCLUSION. 


361 


litical power of the white population. Under the slave system they sent 
eighteen members to Congress by virtue of the three-fifth clause. Now 
that all the slaves must soon become free, 1,600,000 over the three-fifths 
will have to be added to the basis of federal representation; instead of 
eighteen white men holding seats in Congress as representatives of the 
slave population we have to add ten more by virtue of the slaves all becom¬ 
ing free ; then twenty-eight members of Congress would be entitled to 
seats in the House of Representatives by virtue of the freedmen. If 
they are not allowed to vote, the strength of their numbers is added to 
the white population; and the new order of things where the South had 
only eighty-four representatives, now gives them ninety-four. If the 
freedmen of the South are allowed to vote, then the Constitution has ful¬ 
filled its promise ; that is to see that the form of government in each 
State is republican ; each vote given in the South will have the same 
power as each vote cast in the North. 

If this course is not adopted, all the political power kept from the negro 
on account of his color is gained by the Southern white. An unjust law 
may deny the freedmen a right to vote ; but Southern politicians can not do 
without counting them as a basis of representation, they will be eager to 
transfer into the new condition, the dregs of the old, in order to hold 
an increased political power by virtue of the new status of the negro. 
Either the negro must be allowed to vote, or the white man must be de¬ 
nied the right to vote for him; to do the latter, the Constitution will have 
to be changed, and the principle of basing representation on the whole 
number of free persons discarded. 

To abandon this, we remove the very foundation of free government. 
Are the -people of the United States prepared for this , because it is distasteful 
to the ex-slaveholders arid a few political demagogues to allow the negro the 
right of suffrage ? The South itself would loose political power if this 
was carried out: instead of ninety-four representatives she is enti¬ 
tled to by counting the negro population, she would if they were left 
out, be entitled to only sixty-six. Thus we see, however distasteful 
negro voting may be, self interest will compel them to grant their 
just political rights. The people of this great country will never 
abandon the principles of republican government to pander to the pre¬ 
judices of ex-slaveholders, traitors, and demagogues. Neither will they 
allow the people of the South the privilege of voting by virtue of its ne¬ 
gro population, except the privilege is extended to the negroes them¬ 
selves. To enter into any of these base and ungrateful schemes to dis¬ 
franchise the freedmen, the Government turns its back on about the only 
loyal population in its southern territory, and this on account of their color; 
by abandoning these loyal citizens, it fosters revolution and gathers to its 
embrace a banditti of poisoners and assassins, who unscrupulous in means 


362 


CONCLUSION. 


would use the ingratitude of the Federal Government as an argument with 
the negro, and by promising him his political rights, under different circum¬ 
stances, might at some future day, with his assistance make another effort 
to achieve their independence. The Southern States are not allowed to 
go on under their old constitutions, but are compelled to make new ones ; 
they must be republican in form, recognizing the abolition of slavery. 
But we ask how can a constitution be republican in the true sense and 
meaning of the term if it denies the right to vote to a majority of its citi¬ 
zens. Such are the constitutions of South Carolina and Mississippi, where 
the freedmen outnumber the white population ; would this be republican 
in form? we think not. But counting freedmen as a basis of representa¬ 
tion, you give to the South Carolina and Mississippi rebels more political 
power than they had when slavery was in full blast. But if you reduce 
the voting population to the loyal whites, the whole thing becomes a 
farce. The political power exercised by the very few loyal whites, would 
excel any thing before known. Such a preponderous and unjust grant of 
political power in voting, and reconstructing the organic laws of the rebel 
States can not be allowed—the people of the North will not permit it to be 
done. If the freedmen of the South are to be counted as a basis of rep¬ 
resentation, where is the political knave in the North that will go before 
the country and advocate the right of rebels to vote for them ; no, th*e 
freedmen must be counted out, or allowed to do their own voting. That 
they can not be counted out without destroying the fundamental princi¬ 
ples of the Federal Government we have before shown. This question 
now comes before the nation in the same form as emancipation. By it 
the Government secured the aid of the slave, and the sympathetic prayers 
of all Christian countries rose in our behalf like incense to the throne of 
God, and in his own good time Jehovah smiled, and our success was 
complete. 

The power of the Federal Government is now so imposing that it can, 
without fear, afford to be just. As to the question what to do with the 
negro, we can say the Saviour of men answered this question over 1800 
years ago—‘ ‘ Do even unto them as you would wish them in all things 
to do unto you.” The peace and future safety of our country can only 
be preserved by directing our political course more in harmony with 
the Declaration of Independence, and gathering the fruits of victory, 
we can continue in the unobstructed channel of eternal justice. 

This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and gov¬ 
ernment of the people, by the people, for the people, and shall not per¬ 
ish from the earth.— Lincoln's Speech at Gettysburgh, Nov. 19, 1863. 

The country will accept his opinion on manhood suffrage. His letter to 
Governor Hahn of Louisiana is of interest, and while it gives important 
advice, revealing his desires, expectation and intentions towards the col- 


cpst uision. 363 

ored people, it also lias the ring of prophecy. We place it here for the 
benefit of the people of the whole country. 

“ Executive Mansion. ) 
Washington, March 13, 1864. j 

Hon. Michael Hahn: 

My Dear Sir : I congratulate you on having fixed your name in histo¬ 
ry as the first free-State Governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to 
have a convention, which, among other things, will probably define the 
elective franchise. I barely suggest, for your private consideration, 
whether some of«the colored people may not be let in, as, for instance, 
the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in 
our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to 
keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. But this is only a 
suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone. 

Truly yours, A. LINCOLN. 

another important letter. 

The following extract is from the late President Lincoln’s letter to Gen. 
Wadsworth, who fell in the battle of the Wilderness. 

It shows that Mr. Lincoln desired the bestowal of the elective franchise 
upon the blacks, and was, also, at an early day, in favor of granting uni¬ 
versal amnesty to the South. 

His wishes, in this particular, the American people can not afford to 
disregard. Congress should exact the right of suffrage for the blacks, 
then universal amnesty should be extended to the rebels. This certainly 
was Mr. Lincoln’s plan, and whose intentions all parties should observe. 

The following is the extract referred to, in which Mr. Lincoln says : 

“ You desire to know, in the event of complete success in the field— 
the same being followed by a loyal and cheerful submission on the part 
of the South—if universal amnesty should not be accompanied with uni¬ 
versal suffrage. 

“ Now, since you know my private inclinations as to what terms should 
be granted to the South, in the contingency mentioned, I will here add, 
that if our success should thus be realized, followed by such desired re¬ 
sults, I can not see, if universal amnesty is granted, how, under the cir¬ 
cumstances, I can avoid exacting in return universal suffrage, or, suf¬ 
frage on the basis of intelligence and military service. 

“ How to better the condition of the colored race has long been a study 
which has attracted my serious and careful attention ; hence I think I am 
clear and decided as to what course I shall pursue in the premises, regard¬ 
ing it a religious duty, as the nation’s guardian of these people, who 
have so heroicalv vindicated their manhood on the battle field, where, in 


364 


CONCLUSION. 


assisting to save the life of the republic, they have demonstrated in 
blood their right to the ballot, which is but the humane protection of the 
flag they have so fearlessly defended.’’ 

President Johnson is determined to make the passage of the constitu¬ 
tional amendment abolishing slavery, and the repudiation of all debts 
contracted in aid or by authority of the rebellion prominent features 
in his administration. Although slavery received its death wound by the 
Proclamation of Freedom, yet it requires the amendment to complete its 
legal extinction on American soil. 

We know not what may be in store for the black race in America ; 
but let the people so act that hereafter it can never be said that their 
personal freedom, or a fair competition in the race for life, were denied 
them. Give them fair play ; they and their friends ask no more, and 
will accept no less. 

Then, whatever may be their future history, America will have done 
her duty. 

Washington gave us Independance ; Lincoln will ever stand in his¬ 
tory as the liberator of the American slave. The extension of the right 
of suffrage to the Freedmen will form another important epoch in our 
country’s history. By securing this right, President Johnson becomes 
the founder of equal and impartial justice to all American citizens. 
This wise measure will give full scope to his honest and patriotic 
heart, and forever fix his name in history as the worthy successor of the 
lamented Lincoln. 

We have thus passed over the road which the nation has traveled from 
its birth—beginning with the adoption of the Federal Constitution, where 
we find the origin not only of all our prosperity, but of all our domestic 
troubles. We have traced the growth of the slave power, which under 
the shield of that Constitution, ruled the republic exclusively for slavery 
until slavery was overthrown ; and we have shown how imperative it was 
that slavery and the slave power should die, in order that liberty and 
the republic might live. We have developed the secret plots and con¬ 
spiracies of the champions of human bondage, who, like despots every¬ 
where, to achieve success, resorted to the foulest crimes. And we have, 
finally, given a history of the great war, in whose oceans of blood the 
accursed system of slavery and its leaders have sunk forever. 

We have been forced to pass through some of the darkest scenes in 
our country’s history, painful though it has been. But though the clouds 
were black, they were to the hopeful eye tinged with light; and now 
that the nation has started on a new course of empire and freedom, 
we leave to coming historians to record its impartial justice to all its 
children, and future influence over the destinies of the human race 


LETTER FROM PROFESSOR ROBERT GRANT, 


Who accompanied Comodore Perry’s Squadron at the close of the Mexican war. 
and at Iris direction made a Scientific investigation of the Climate, Soil, and Pro 
ducts of Central America. 


Baltimore, Oct. 23 d, I860. 

Dear Sir, 

I congratulate you upon the success of your work, entitled History of the Plots 
and Crimes of the Great Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in America, showing the 
barbaric animus which actuated those Southern conspirators, who inaugurated the 
great American rebellion in favor of Monarchy, based upon the indiscriminate sla¬ 
very of the labor of the country. 

My purpose in writing to you, at this time, is, to offer my positive evidence, in 
corroboration of the facts you have established in your work, showing that Presi¬ 
dents Harrison and Taylor were poisoned by those demons in human form, who 
inoculated and “fired the southern heart,” with their traitorous teachings. 

It so occurred, in the conducting of my business, as a mechanical engineer, that 
I became a temporary resident in Washington, at the time of President Harrison’s 
death, and also at the moment of President Taylor's death. At the time of Presi¬ 
dent Harrison’s death, I was consulted in reference to the use of galvanism, in the 
last stages of his disease, inasmuch as I had made some improvements in electro¬ 
magneto machines adapted to medical uses, and as it had been suggested by some 
medical gentlemen, that electro-chemical baths, would be serviceable in eliminating 
poisons from the human system in extreme cases. 

The baths were not used, as far as I know, by the medical gentlemen having the 
immediate case of the President, but I do know that the symptoms were ad¬ 
mitted by several medical attendants on that occasion at the White House, to re¬ 
quire the most energetic treatment for poison. I recollect perfectly well that a 
diagnosis of the case was advanced, referring the symptoms to the presence of lead, 
in some form, either as an oxide or an acetate, as accounting for the peculiar 
character of the disease which resulted in the death of President Harrison. 

The subsequent poisoning of President Taylor, and the attempt to poison Presi¬ 
dent Buchanan fatally, has satisfied me that lead, either in the whole or mingled 
with arsenic, was the immediate means of these cold blooded assassinations. 

Referring tc the suggestions of medical gentlemen in Washington in making a 
diagnosis of the case of President Harrison, and referring the symptoms to the 
presence of poison, I feel it to be necessary to state, that these explanations were 
advanced with extreme caution. Honorable gentlemen were adverse to counte¬ 
nance an expression of public conviction, which would degrade our national char¬ 
acter, and stigmatize us as a race of poisoners, more atrocious and cruel than the 
political banditti who hovered like a fiendish incubus over the darkest night of 
crushed Italy. The hydra body of slavery had not, at that time, fully developed 
its gnashing jaws, and philanthropists were only intent on nipping off’, and rubbing 
down with gentle emolients the crop of hissing heads, which were budding out all 
over its hideous carcass. Therefore it was, that peace-loving men hushed with 
trembling fear, any public expression of this horrid conviction. 

The poisoning of President Taylor, the particulars of which I am personally con¬ 
versant with, so far as an immediate investigation of- the symptoms are concerned, 
was doubtless effected by “ the same kind of drug as was given to President Harri¬ 
son” as you correctly state in your woi*k. The principal physicians who attended 
President Harrison, were those who attended President Taylor. The result was 
the same! 


PROF. ROBERT GRANT'S LETTER. 


On the 4th of July 1850, President Taylor attended the inauguration of the 
Washington Monument, and after sitting out the speeches and ceremonies of the 
occasion, returned to tiie White House between 4 and 5 o’clock, p. m. One of the 
attendants of the White House stated to me at that time, “ that immediately after 
arriving home, President Taylor partook of a dish of cold boiled cabbage, of which 
he was very fond. Soon after he was taken with severe vomiting, which continued 
until his death.” The matter thrown from President Taylor’s stomach, as did that in 
the case of President Harrison, showed every appearance of poison, according to the 
best concurring evidence which I could obtain on the spot at the time of his death. 

Was a secret assassin near the person of President Taylor during these terrible 
four days, manipulating him according to the southern programme, so successfully 
accomplished in the previous case of President Harrison? Was an assassin located 
in the presidential household, one who made himself acquainted with the Presi¬ 
dent’s tastes and habits, and who knew how to cook cabbaye ? Did a specimen of 
that infernal element haunt the National Hotel, and at the bidding of the southern 
conspirators poison nearly every northern boarder, at the same time with President 
Buchanan, to cover up the crime? A close personal observation of all these 
events has satisfied me that this was the case. 

As the priests of the Indian Thuggs have their sworn assassins; as the Italian 
banditti have their hired murderers, so did the treacherous conspirators of the 
South spew out their poisoners and diject their heartless cut-throats throughout the 
North, ready to enact any foul crime in the interest of slavery! Pioneers of the 
bottomless pit, cutting away the Abatis of freedom, clearing the way fora concerted 
charge on the temple of liberty, by the demons of hell! 

Who these conspirators were, the history of this foul rebellion has principally 
unmasked; still the entire attrocities of their lives can not now be fully compre¬ 
hended by the public, were it possible at this moment to gather the compendious 
details of their treachery and crimes. Neither is it necessary immediately to un¬ 
mask the full complicity with these traitors, maintained by their affiliating sup¬ 
porters, the cognate copperheads, the gelatinous hypocrites and knaves of the North 
who have given aid and comfort to the enemies of God and their country. But 
“ time proves all things,” and just so unrelentingly will “the slow unmoving fin¬ 
ger of scorn” be “pointed at” these men; just so surely will retribution finally 
overtake them, as that God and J ustice are one! I api impelled to these utter¬ 
ances of seemingly harsh expletives—to utter adjectives unusual in polite literature, 
from the vivid sense and knowledge I possess, that these men have committed 
crimes so satanically wicked that no language, but. that constructed to represent the 
syampathies of hell, can give tongue to the terrible reality! 

I do not desire to elaborate this subject, and I can not explain systematically a 
tithe of what I know, affirming the correctness of your book, without dilating upon 
the question to the exclusion of more pressing business. One incident, however, I 
shall go so far as to describe, which may, perhaps, throw some light upon the 
machinations of one of the principal characters in this drama, and which has not 
hitherto been made public. 

In the spring of 1848, I was in Washington on official business, having but re¬ 
cently returned from the Gulf of Mexico, where I had been attached to Commo¬ 
dore Perry’s squadron, during the latter part of the Mexican war. While under 
Commodore Perry’s command, I had, by his direction, made a scries of scientific 
explorations, in various parts of the peninsula of Yucatan, and through the Usuma- 
centi river, in Central America. The results of my labors were recorded in the 
form of a report, accompanied with illustrative maps, drawings, and various speci¬ 
mens, both animal and mineral, representing the productions of the country. i 

When I arrived in Washington, I was given to understand that this report had ’ 
been ordered in accordance with the desire of lion. John C. Calhoun, and I was • 
directed to attend at his house with it in F Street. I paid my respects to Mr. Cal¬ 
houn, and at his request deposited a copy of my report with Mr. Burt, Mr. Cal¬ 
houn’s son-in-law, for perusal. This incident occurred on or about the 15th of 
June 1848. In a few days afttr Hon. Mr. Burt called upon me and invited me 


PROF. ROBERT GRANT’S LETTER. 

to take tea with Mr. Calhoun at his house. On my arrival I soon discovered that 
this social family “ tea" was most emphatically a “/>/««<,” or in other words, through 
the magic influence of this aristocratic southern family tea party I was expected to 
be impressed with the propriety of altering my report, or of allowing lion. John C. 
Calhoun to alter it so as to convert its purely scientific record into arguments advo¬ 
cating the introduction of slavery into the valley of the Usumaccnti river and Cen¬ 
tral America. 

I did not believe in slavery; I never could endorse it in any shape ; ana I frankly 
told Mr. Calhoun so; although I at the same time admitted that I believed, as I do 
now, most emphatically, that the negro race are not of the genus homo with tl>e 
white man, and that, as a race, in a state of slavery, he is the worst enemy the 
white man has to encounter on earth, as he invariably barbarizes the white man 
when associated with him in this condition, by a process indosmos and exosmos of 
mentalities, and physically by the nursing of the white man’s child by the negro 
“ mama’s” as practiced at the South—the negro nutrition controling the natural 
idioeyncracies of the white child—the normal condition of the negro being barbaric 
and wild, to which condition he will immediately revert, when freed from the in¬ 
fluence of the white man, and that every attempt to associate the dark races with 
the white races, since the earliest dawn of monumental history, lias hitherto re¬ 
sulted and inevitably will result in the debasement of both races—and that no white 
race has fallen or gone down in the scale of civilization, except through the futile 
attempt to engraft some dark race upon its progressive life—and that the great 
error of the South was the attempt to innoculate its civilized progress with the negro 
element, as a permanent basis of enslaved labor—and that, if this course was con¬ 
tinued, it would result in the ruin of the South, or the destruction of the negro. 
This idea I had also elaborated in my report, which had been previously examined 
by Mr. Calhoun. 

All that I said on that occasion appeared to have no effect upon Mr. Calhoun ; 
he listened for the moment and incidentally remarked that my antecedent record was 
a sufficient guarantee for my final action in this matter; and went on to propose 
that I should omit that portion of my report, showing the incompatibility of the 
negro with civilization, and that the whole should be made to show the vast ad¬ 
vantage which would result from the immediate introduction of negro slavery into 
those fertile valleys which drain the eastern water-shed of the mountains in Central 
America. The result of our conversation was, that I gleaned from Mr. Calhoun 
the substance of hi» intentions, to finally press slavery into all the grain-growing 
States and Territories of the North, for the purpose of affording breeding grounds, 
or a kind of Africa, producing slaves for the more fertile cotton and sugar planting 
regions south, until the pressure, north and south, should have absorbed the eutire 
continents of North and South America in an immense slaveholding nation. 

Mr. Calhoun unreservedly presented this vision to me because 1 had, as he re¬ 
marked, referring to my antecedents two years previously, with his knowledge and 
approbation, given a series of public lectures in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore 
and Washington, showing the marked distinction between the dark and white 
races, and proving the incompatibility of the dark races of mankind with a high 
state of human progress, in common with the wild Fauna and Flora of the inferior 
types; and w r hich lectures, the events of this war have crowned almost with the 
light of history. Mr. Calhoun doubtless was impressed with the belief, as I find 
most persons now are, on the first presentation of my theory, that the transition 
from this doctrine to a coincidence with slavery, was but a step. True, it is but a 
step—but that step is from the sublime to the ridiculous! ! The simple fact is, 
that whatever the negro may be, God made him so, for his own good purpose, and 
no man has a right to make a slave of him! If he does so, the negro carries his 
own vengeance with him into that slavery, which, by association, eventually bar¬ 
barizes the white man. 

In view of such inducements, as the final carrying out of this great slave nation¬ 
ality might offer, Mr. Calhoun gave me to understand, as a present consideration, 
if I would lend my report to the interest of slavery, that the whole should be pub- 


PROF. ROBERT GRANTS LETTER. 

1 

lished as a Congressional Document, that I should be paid the extraordinary ex¬ 
penses which I had been subjected to, in making explorations and collecting speci¬ 
mens, and in compiling mv report. That I should be continued in my position in 
the navy, at an increased salary, that I should be detailed to make scientific ex¬ 
plorations among the wild races of Africa, which I then anxiously desired to ac¬ 
complish. At the same time, Mr. Calhoun gave me to understand, that if I did 
not so prostitute my report to the interest of slavery, that I should not be paid a 
cent for my trouble in getting it up. That I would lose my situation in the navy, 
with all the flattering inducements held out to me, and that I should be debarred 
hereafter from all Government countenance and support in my efforts to introduce 
the Calcium light for light-house purposes. 

This was the substance of Mr. Calhoun's conference with me. It was not direct¬ 
ly, or plainly stated by him in the aggregate, but he left me to draw inferences as 
to the result of my action, in reference to the report; still I could not mistake his 
meaning. He was very gentlemanly in his manner, and his conversational and 
persuasive powers were of the highest order; at the same time there was a lordly, 
dogmatic air, which he used, seeming to desire to compel me to accept the fiat of 
his will. With all this, my pride was finally roused. My Scotch nature would 
not submit to be made the tool of an imperious aristocrat. The insult, of being re¬ 
quested to sell my highest convictions, for a mess of pottage, was more than I had 
bargained for; and without deigning further explanation, I flatly refused his offer, 
and taking up my manuscript, remarked, that it “was already paid for; that it 
was worth to me all that it cost, and that I intended to keep it until such times, as 
with God’s blessing mankind should come to their senses, which event, I hoped and 
believed, would occur in my day, if not in his.” (Now, thank God! in my day 
mankind are coming to their senses.) I then retired from the presence of the 
great autocrat, and I have never seen him since; but I ha ye felt him. Shortly after 
I was informed that my services were no longer required in the navy. I was re¬ 
fused all compensation for my report, and during Mr. Calhoun’s life I could do 
nothing with my light-house improvements; and even after his death the shadow 
of that unreleniing old man stood in my path in a hundred different forms, until 
the breaking out of the rebellion. J have now, however, reason to believe that his 
ghost is laid, and forever, with his great prototype, the satanic spirit of slavery! 

I am glad, my dear sir, that you have unmasked the fiendish origin, and mon¬ 
archical tendencies of human bondage. 

As the pioneer, in disclosing the deep hidden atrocities of ninety years of the 
slave-power, you deserve the heartfelt gratitude of every man and woman worthy 
to bear the American name. 

Yours ever, 

ROBERT GRANT. 

John Smith Dye, Esq., author of History of the Plots and Crimes of the Great 
Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in America. No. 100 Broadway, (opposiJ© 
Trinity Church), New York. 








' 






























































































